LAX97FA156 · Glaser-Dirks DG-300
Glaser-Dirks DG-300 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97FA156
- 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
- 1 · 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
Glaser-Dirks DG-300
- Aircraft type
- Glaser Dirks DG-300
- 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
- N70644
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV)To not recorded
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/spin
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Manufacturer › Acft/equip, inadequate design
- Pilot in command › Incapacitation
- Reason for occurrence undetermined
- Window, canopy › Other
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had 30 hrs of total glider experience & was on his 1st flight in a Glaser-Dirks DG-300 (a European, single place, production glider). He had been inactive in gliders for a year & had received 5 hrs of recurrency training in Grob 102 & 103 gliders during the previous 5 days. His logbook contained an entry for the previous day's solo flight in a Grob 102, which stated 'steep turns and stalls.' Subsequently, the glider crashed on rolling terrain in a nose-low attitude without appreciable forward motion. During impact, the nose was crushed & the fuselage failed about 3 ft aft of the cockpit. The aft fuselage & empennage were found lying inverted over the left wing. The canopy jettison control was found to have been pulled (released), & there were impact marks on the horizontal stabilizer leading edge at locations consistent with the canopy frame dimensions. Plexiglas from the canopy was found up to 300 yds away. The pilot was found seated upright in the cockpit with his parachute on & his seat belt restraint system fastened. Despite severe lacerations due to ground impact, there was no blood apparent anywhere on the pilot's face. However, a large contusion (bruise) was found across the pilot's forehead, apparently sustained before ground impact, which was consistent with impact with the jettisoned canopy.
Probable cause
loss of aircraft control for undetermined reason(s), inadequate design of the canopy jettison system, and incapacitation of the pilot, when he was struck by the canopy frame during a jettison sequence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97FA156
- Event ID
- 20001208X07737
- Case number
- LAX97FA156
- 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: 1ec96bb6fb282730ee4dedd85cc1d823843cc7696a2f8aa711fc4dae101466ef; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:59:58.986Z.