DEN99LA028 · Burkhart Grob G103 TWIN ASTIR G103 TWIN
Burkhart Grob G103 TWIN ASTIR G103 TWIN · Accident during initial climb
From 1V6 to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN99LA028
- 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
Burkhart Grob G103 TWIN ASTIR G103 TWIN
- Aircraft type
- Grob G103
- 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
- N173SS
- Operator
- Peak Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 1V6To 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Aircraft preflight, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During initial climb from takeoff, the rear canopy of the glider opened. When the pilot reached to close the canopy, the glider ballooned above the tow plane. The pilot turned the glider to the left and lowered the nose to maintain airspeed. The glider then impacted the ground before he leveled out. According to the passenger and several witnesses, prior to takeoff, the glider pilot signaled the tow pilot that he was ready for takeoff. However, the departure was halted so that the glider pilot could be given a handheld radio in order for communications to be established between the glider and the tow plane. The glider pilot opened the canopy in order to receive the radio, then re-closed it. The first ground scars were observed approximately 1,100 feet prior to the end of the paved section of runway 29, and an additional 800 feet of dirt extends beyond the runway prior to the existence of any obstructions. At the request of an FAA inspector, a postaccident examination of the rear canopy latch was performed. According to the mechanic who performed the inspection, 'the rear canopy latch was found to be operational.'
Probable cause
The glider pilot's failure to follow proper preflight procedures, and his failure to control the aircraft when the latch opened during flight. A factor was his failure to properly latch the canopy, and to utilize all available runway during the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN99LA028
- Event ID
- 20001211X11550
- Case number
- DEN99LA028
- 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: 05eaa8034a681fcb9a9470ff60a44d3532184850ea9b64e8049196473f3bcba3; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:16:42.161Z.