CHI00LA033 · Schweizer SGS-1-34
Schweizer SGS-1-34 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From 86K to 86K
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA033
- 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-1-34
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-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
- N7646
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 86KTo 86K
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that while on short final to runway 18, at an altitude of 350 feet agl, the glider encountered a gust of wind and it turned left of the runway heading. He elected to perform a 360 degree turn to the left to realign the glider with the runway heading. The pilot stated that while on a northerly heading turbulence and a sink rate were encountered. He was unable to level the wings and the glider stalled, impacting the terrain. A glider pilot who witnessed the accident reported the glider was landing to the north, downwind, when the accident occurred. He reported it was common for them to land with a tailwind of 10 knots of less to minimize ground handling. The glider wreckage was located southeast of the runway. The pilot reported the local winds were from the northwest at 2 knots. The witness reported the local winds were from 200 degrees at 10 knots. The winds reported 18 miles northwest of the accident site, 23 minutes after the accident, were from 220 degrees at 15 knots.
Probable cause
inadequate airspeed and a subsequent stall. Factors associated with the accident were the tailwind, the pilot's misjudgment of the wind condition, and poor inflight planning.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA033
- Event ID
- 20001212X20083
- Case number
- CHI00LA033
- 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: 8408be283f37a3f2797ab815cab11230b05d2a57aa130bdb516607845fab0988; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:47:32.831Z.