LAX91LA346 · Schweizer SGS 126E
Nevada Soaring Assoc Schweizer SGS 126E · Accident: forced landing during an emergency descent
From Air Sailing Gliderport (NV23) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA346
- 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 126E
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-126
- 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
- N65932
- Operator
- Nevada Soaring Assoc
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Air Sailing Gliderport (NV23), Sparks, NVTo 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
- Emergency descent
- 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
- Forced 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/spin
- 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 › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CERTIFICATED COMMERCIAL PILOT, THE SOLE OCCUPANT, WAS PARTICIPATING IN A GLIDER COMPETITION WHEN THE LOSS OF THERMAL LIFT NECESSITATED AN OFF AIRPORT LANDING. THE PILOT OVERSHOT HIS INTENDED LANDING POINT ON A ROAD AND BEGAN A MANEUVERING TURN TO AGAIN LINE UP ON THE ROAD. DURING THE TURN, THE PILOT STALLED THE GLIDER ABOUT 75 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, DESCENDING IN ABOUT A 60 DEGREE NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE AND ROTATING CLOCKWISE ABOUT ITS VERTICAL AXIS. THE GLIDER STRUCK THE GROUND, CRUSHING THE NOSE AND OUTBOARD PORTION OF THE RIGHT WING. THE GLIDER WAS SUBSTANTIALLY DAMAGED AND THE PILOT RECEIVED SERIOUS INJURIES.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S INADVERTENT STALL OF THE GLIDER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA346
- Event ID
- 20001212X17890
- Case number
- LAX91LA346
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1991-08-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 698e78504a00749f153c7facdf0d8ba6ad8b9955319be24c484f9aa674e255ed; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:22:39.436Z.