IAD00LA051 · Slingsby 41-2
Slingsby 41-2 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Dansville Municipal Airport (DSV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD00LA051
- 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
Slingsby 41-2
- Aircraft type
- Slingsby 41
- 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
- N41SL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dansville Municipal Airport (DSV)To 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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 › Proper touchdown point, not obtained
- Pilot in command › Speed brakes, not verified
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Dansville, NY, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot entered the traffic pattern at 1,000 feet above ground level, which was 200 feet higher than normal. The pilot attempted to lose the excess altitude by extending the air brakes, but the glider did not descend and he extended the downwind leg of the pattern. On final approach, with a 10-15 knot headwind, the pilot did not verify the position of the air brakes, and they remained extended. The glider landed short of the 4,000 foot runway and collided with the airport perimeter fence. The pilot reported a total of 62 total flight hours in gliders, of which 1.3 hours were in make and model. He also reported that he was used to flying another make and model glider with a lower glide ratio. He stated that the entire approach felt and looked different than what he was used to.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to retract the speed brakes which resulted in not obtaining the proper touch down point. A factor to the accident was the pilot's lack of experience in the make and model glider.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD00LA051
- Event ID
- 20001212X21249
- Case number
- IAD00LA051
- 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: e5c5b8734f3e7f7ad1e6b4d882323fa45a611c902d6edc5bc14a9dc6fddd0f08; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:50:47.358Z.