LAX98LA209 · Glaser-Dirks DG-800B
Glaser-Dirks DG-800B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From 0L7 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX98LA209
- 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
Glaser-Dirks DG-800B
- Aircraft type
- Glaser Dirks DG-800
- 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
- N98NL
- Operator
- David Noyes
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 0L7To 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Flt control syst, elevator control cable/rod › Disconnected
- Manufacturer › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The glider impacted terrain and the pilot reported that he lost elevator control. The bolt connecting the pushrod to the elevator was found, but the attaching nut was not found. The European production glider had a total time of 4 hours since manufacture. The metallurgist who examined the bolt reported the first three threads of the accident bolt did not have debris in the roots; however, proper engagement of the locknut would cause six threads to be free of debris. An exemplar locknut in the hand-tightened only position (without engaging the blue plastic lining of the locknut) caused the nut threads to wipe material from the roots of the first three bolt threads
Probable cause
The disconnection of the elevator control attachment nut due to improper installation by the manufacturer, which resulted in the pilot's loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX98LA209
- Event ID
- 20001211X10364
- Case number
- LAX98LA209
- 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: 3451aa0dd128916ab9e7121de386ba4c8c09893a428a1acfe23f5bbd93042ceb; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:28:34.021Z.