NYC91LA152 · Glasflugel LIBELLE 201B LIBELLE 20
Glasflugel LIBELLE 201B LIBELLE 20 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Saratoga County Airport (5B2) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC91LA152
- 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
Glasflugel LIBELLE 201B LIBELLE 20
- Aircraft type
- Glasflugel LIBELLE 201
- 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
- N8041D
- Operator
- Philip Spaziani
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Saratoga County Airport (5B2), SARATOGA, NYTo 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Flare, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Flight controls, improper use of
- Pilot in command › Lift-off, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
AFTER FLYING FOR OVER 2 HOURS THE PILOT PLANNED ON AN OFF AIRPORT LANDING. HE THEN SAW A CLOUD AND TRIED FOR ADDITIONAL LIFT. HE ACHIEVED A SMALL AMOUNT OF LIFT, HOWEVER HE WAS CARRIED AWAY FROM HIS INTENDED LANDING AREA AND WAS UNABLE TO MAKE IT BACK TO THE AREA. HE PLANNED FOR ANOTHER FIELD HOWEVER HE REALIZED IT WAS SLOPING THE WRONG WAY AT AN ALTITUDE THAT WAS TOO LOW TO CHANGE. HE CONTINUED THE APPROACH AND LANDED. THE FAA SAID THE PILOT LANDED ON AN UP HILL SLOPE AND THE FLARE THE PILOT ACCOMPLISHED WAS INSUFFICIENT FOR THE UPHILL SLOPE.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT TO ADEQUATELY FLARE WHEN MAKING AN UPHILL LANDING. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE THE PILOT CONTINUED ATTEMPTS AT FINDING LIFT WHICH REDUCED HIS LANDING OPTIONS WHEN HE DECIDED TO LAND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC91LA152
- Event ID
- 20001212X17366
- Case number
- NYC91LA152
- 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: 043840565b98dfcefd8471d5fedaeee89fb6c0d1e260eff6beae7ed4b9c9e9a1; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:25:39.180Z.