LAX97LA215 · Schempp-Hirth NIMBUS 3/24.5 NIMBUS 3/2
Schempp-Hirth NIMBUS 3/24.5 NIMBUS 3/2 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Siskiyou County Airport (SIY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX97LA215
- 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
Schempp-Hirth NIMBUS 3/24.5 NIMBUS 3/2
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth NIMBUS 3
- 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
- N4427M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Siskiyou County Airport (SIY), Montague, CATo 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
- Approach
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while in a closed circuit race he was attempting to gain altitude in a thermal, which disappeared. The glider did not have sufficient altitude to continue and the pilot elected to return and land at an airport he had passed earlier. About 4 miles from the airport, an unexpected heavy sink rate was encountered. He picked an alternate landing site and on final approach to the south, he noticed a set of power lines different than the ones he had previously seen. They ran from east to west at the northern edge of the dirt strip. In order to avoid the obstructions, he went over the power lines. The right wing caught the wires, and the glider fell to the ground.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to see and avoid a set of power lines while making an off-airport landing due to a lack of lift.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX97LA215
- Event ID
- 20001208X08175
- Case number
- LAX97LA215
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1997-06-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d9b1184c3f49385ae8fe9bb4aca41bfeab77614aee998a4f2e314ce2cf274f8f; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:25:07.968Z.