LAX91LA378 · Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-B
Hutchinson Family Trust Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water on approach
From California City Municipal Airport (L71) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA378
- 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
Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-B
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth VENTUS-B
- 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
- N901DH
- Operator
- Hutchinson Family Trust
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From California City Municipal Airport (L71), California City, CATo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern base
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE PARTICIPATING IN A GLIDER CONTEST, THE PILOT TRAVELED FOR 17 NAUTICAL MILES AND REACHED THE FIRST TURN POINT IN THE SPECIFIED TRIANGULAR COURSE. THE GLIDER PILOT WAS LOW, AND THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO LAND AT A NEARBY AIRSTRIP. WITNESSES REPORTED OBSERVING THE GLIDER FLYING DOWNWIND AT 50 TO 100 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND. WHEN THE GLIDER TURNED TOWARD THE APPROACH END OF THE RUNWAY IT LOST ALTITUDE AND COLLIDED WITH A DIRT BERM ON THE EDGE OF THE RUNWAY. THE DESCRIPTION OF THE GLIDER'S FLIGHT PATH WAS BASED UPON WITNESS STATEMENTS. THE PILOT HAD NO MEMORY OF THE ACCIDENT FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE GLIDER PILOT'S INADEQUATE ALTITUDE TO CLEAR TERRAIN. FACTORS WHICH RELATED TO THE PILOT BEING LOW COULD NOT BE ESTABLISHED BECAUSE THE PILOT HAD NO MEMORY OF THE ACCIDENT, AND NO WITNESSES WERE IDENTIFIED WHO OBSERVED THE GLIDER OTHER THAN DURING ITS FINAL FEW SECONDS OF FLIGHT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA378
- Event ID
- 20001212X17918
- Case number
- LAX91LA378
- 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: 99640e3d3f97bde71d891ca1024b20919c17b288b0e04295076b164fdd3922e9; retrieved 2026-09-21T15:21:11.600Z.