LAX91LA408 · Burkhart Grob G103
Burkhart Grob G103 · Accident: undershoot on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX91LA408
- 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
Burkhart Grob G103
- Aircraft type
- Grob G103
- 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
- N4113G
- Operator
- Sky Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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 final
- 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
- Undershoot
- 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 › Compensation for wind conditions, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT STATED THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED ON FINAL APPROACH TO THE AIRPORT. HE STATED HE MADE A NORMAL PATTERN ENTRY AND TURNED BASE AT THE STANDARD 45 DEGREE POINT. ON BASE, HE OPENED THE SPOILERS ABOUT 20%. AS HE TURNED FINAL AND LINED UP WITH THE RUNWAY, HE SAID HE COULD SEE THAT HIS GLIDE SLOPE WOULD TAKE HIM BEYOND THE WHITE LINE, AND WAS EXPECTING TO ADD MORE SPOILERS AS HE GOT CLOSER. THIS CHANGED ABRUPTLY, AS HE WAS CAUGHT IN A DOWNWASH CAUSED BY BUILDINGS ON THE APPROACH PATH. CLOSING THE DIVE BRAKES WAS OF LITTLE HELP. REALIZING HE COULD NOT MAKE THE ALTITUDE BACK, HE TURNED APPROXIMATELY 180 DEGREES TO THE RIGHT AND LANDED IN A SMALL ROUGH FIELD. DURING THE LANDING, THE RIGHT WING CAUGHT AND THE SAILPLANE GROUNDLOOPED.
Probable cause
THE PILOT FAILED TO ADEQUATELY COMPENSATE FOR THE PREVAILING WIND CONDITIONS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX91LA408
- Event ID
- 20001212X18134
- Case number
- LAX91LA408
- 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: a53fb939f07f2360733528000c6406027acddb5b00ef4095dbbc5762379dc7d7; retrieved 2026-09-23T03:39:39.841Z.