FTW97FA249 · Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-2B
Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-2B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Industrial Airpark (HBB) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97FA249
- 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
Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-2B
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth VENTUS-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
- N80077
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Industrial Airpark (HBB), NMTo 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 · VFR pattern turn to base
- 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
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had been involved in a week-long Region 9 glider competition. Witnesses reported that approximately halfway to the first check point, a 'low cloud deck moved in from the northeast reducing the available lift.' Witnesses stated that the weather deteriorated to such a degree that 20 of the 38 competing gliders landed-out. As the pilot was flying south towards the approach end of runway 17, approximately 200 feet agl, he turned eastbound. According to witnesses at the destination airport, the pilot radioed that he was going 'to land-out.' A witness near the accident site reported that she 'heard the glider fly overhead and looked up to see it just above her house.' The witness further reported that she saw the glider fly northbound and climb to 'about 2, maybe 3 telephone poles height above the ground.' She said that the glider was 'rocking back and forth like a kite, and then it spun to the left and hit the ground.' The glider fell on some transmission wires as it impacted the ground. The Soaring Society of America's Flight Manual states that in preparation for an off-field landing, the pilot should select a specific field by 1,500 feet agl.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to select an off-field landing site with sufficient time/altitude to perform the landing which led to his failure to maintain airspeed. A factor was the unfavorable wind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97FA249
- Event ID
- 20001208X08353
- Case number
- FTW97FA249
- 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: 27c2028024160e59a4a145fe1d1b0f1f8532cfb41281ab3c8996a8d2b0a1741b; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:54:28.935Z.