LAX93LA324 · Schweizer 1-35C
Schweizer 1-35C · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Lakeside Airpark (AZ05) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA324
- 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 1-35C
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer 1
- 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
- N2562H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lakeside Airpark (AZ05), Paradise Valley, AZTo 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
- Maneuvering · turn to landing area (emergency)
- 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(vs), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Several gliders were participating in an 80 mile round trip endurance competition and many of the pilots reported turning back early and landing at the gliderport, while others stated that they were forced to make off airport landings in the desert due to unfavorable conditions. The pilot noted that a good altitude margin was maintained during the flight outbound toward the goal until reaching an area about 12 miles west of Wickenburg. The pilot began to experience heavy sink and he decided to turn around and head for the Wickenburg airport. The pilot stated that his altitude continued to deteriorate to the point where the airport at Wickenburg was no longer reachable and an off airport landing in the desert was the only option. The pilot said he found a suitable landing area but had to maneuver on final approach to avoid a set of power lines. The pilot said that during the maneuver the glider stalled, entered a spin to the right and impacted nose first.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain an adequate airspeed margin while maneuvering to land, resulting in an inadvertent stall/spin.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA324
- Event ID
- 20001211X13176
- Case number
- LAX93LA324
- 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: 61a3c9f3d98ad8d579402632c4444e326f344b7e21372024ee61ecfb746e0a8d; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:11:29.369Z.