SEA93LA095 · Rolladen-Schneider LS4A
Rolladen-Schneider LS4A · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT) to Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA93LA095
- 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
Rolladen-Schneider LS4A
- Aircraft type
- Rolladen Schneider LS4
- 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
- N7DZ
- Operator
- Northcraft, Stephen A. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT)To Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT)
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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 › Weather evaluation, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE GLIDER PILOT STATED THAT HE CONTINUED HIS FLIGHT WHEN OTHER PILOTS REPORTED A LARGE AREA OF CUMULUS DEVELOPMENT WITH VIRGA AND RAIN MOVING TOWARD THE AIRPORT. HE ELECTED TO EXTEND HIS FLIGHT FOR A PERIOD OF TIME, THEN ON HIS RETURN TO THE AIRPORT, WINDS AND RAIN INCREASED IN THE VICINITY OF THE AIRPORT. ABOUT A HALF MILE FROM LANDING, HE DECIDED THAT HE WOULD BE UNABLE TO MAKE THE FIELD, AND LANDED IN A SMALL FIELD SHORT OF THE RUNWAY. THE NOSE OF THE AIRCRAFT IMPACTED ON AN UPSLOPE AND A LARGE ROCK BROKE THROUGH THE FUSELAGE, CAUSING SUBSTANTIAL DAMAGE.
Probable cause
MISJUDGED WEATHER EVALUATION. FACTORS INCLUDE HIGH WINDS ENCOUNTERED ON APPROACH.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA93LA095
- Event ID
- 20001211X12250
- Case number
- SEA93LA095
- 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: 573d396974705932e8019e75b337ed522288c377e6df58b385db131e89ca201b; retrieved 2026-09-23T02:12:12.828Z.