CHI98LA268 · Schweizer SGS 2-33A
Schweizer SGS 2-33A · Accident: hard landing
From I52 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98LA268
- 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
- N17901
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From I52To 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- 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(cfi) › Airspeed, not obtained/maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › In-flight planning/decision, delayed
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Stall
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The instructor stated that when they turned base to final they were approximately 250' above ground level (agl). The CFI told the student to use 'Full' spoilers to bring the aircraft back on a normal glide path to the runway. The CFI stated that at approximately 100' agl the student had 'Full' spoilers deployed and had an excessive nose down attitude. The CFI told the student 'Close' the spoilers and bring the nose up to reduce the excessive airspeed. The CFI stated that the student began to bring the nose up, without closing the spoilers, and that he took control of the aircraft at this point. The CFI closed the spoilers completely but the aircraft was already entering a stall. The CFI stated that he reduced the angle of attack in order to regain airspeed and then flared close to the ground. The CFI stated that the aircraft 'Pancaked-in, a landing hard enough to throw me into the shoulder straps and my head down so that briefly I could not see outside.' The aircraft drifted to right side of the runway and the right wing impacted a runway light before coming to a stop.
Probable cause
the delayed in-flight decision of the pilot in command to take control of the aircraft and the proper airspeed not obtained/maintained by the pilot in command which resulted in a stall. A factor to the accident was the runway light.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98LA268
- Event ID
- 20001211X10519
- Case number
- CHI98LA268
- 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: 37ac07800dbd659780baac1689e4b50a8d65cc8f32a9746a3fb0e459244dd419; retrieved 2026-09-22T17:30:37.181Z.