NYC96LA104 · Schweizer SGS-2-33A
Schweizer SGS-2-33A · Accident: undershoot on approach
From 2NO · VAN SANT, PA to São Mateus - Ernesto Bonomo Airport (SBJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC96LA104
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Schweizer SGS-2-33A
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-2
- Category
- Glider
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N17957
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2NO · VAN SANT, PATo São Mateus - Ernesto Bonomo Airport (SBJ)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Undershoot
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Distance/altitude, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Readington, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot obtained a prerecorded weather briefing about 0930 that stated VFR flight was not recommended due to an expected frontal passage that afternoon. The pilot was flown in a tow plane to retrieve a Club glider at another airport. The glider was preflighted, and the tow plane departed about 1625 with the glider in tow. Upon arrival at their destination airport, the glider pilot released from the tow plane and entered the downwind for runway 22. The pilot stated that after he established the glider on a right base for runway 22, he encountered a down draft and determined that he would not make runway 22. The pilot then made a steep right turn and attempted to land on runway 31. He was not able to level the wings with full left aileron and the right wing struck the ground. A witness stated that the glider flew the base leg on the far side of runway 31, and when it turned final it developed a sink rate. The pilot estimated the winds were from 230 degrees at 15 knots, gusting to 20. During the previous 5-1/2 months, the pilot had logged 2 landings and a total of 1 hour and 27 minutes in gliders.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate evaluation of the weather, and his misjudgment of altitude and distance from the runway. Contributing factors were the pilot's lack of recent experience and the weather.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC96LA104
- Event ID
- 20001208X05853
- Case number
- NYC96LA104
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 084b8dbfd45f60d12daebe98187c80cc933cfcff451a5d8a038b144da97a8055; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:45:23.216Z.