CHI00LA188 · Schleicher ASW-20L
Schleicher ASW-20L · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Richmond Field (69G) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA188
- 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
Schleicher ASW-20L
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASW-20
- 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
- N4804W
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richmond Field (69G)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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Flt control syst, yoke/control stick › Movement restricted
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, excessive
- Pilot in command › Proper descent rate, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he identified a problem with his pitch control while on initial climb on aero-tow. The pilot released from the tow-plane at approximately 1000-feet above ground level on a downwind departure. The pilot maneuvered the glider back to the airport, but landed at a higher than normal airspeed and rate of descent. Post-accident investigation failed to reveal any anomalies with the glider or its control systems that could be associated with a preexisting condition. In subsequent interviews with the pilot it was identified that he was wearing a seat-type parachute. In a discussion with a distributor of the accident glider make and model, it was noted that a larger person wearing a seat-type parachute could interfere with the motion of the control stick in the cockpit. According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the pilot reported his height and weight, at his last medical examination, as 70-inches and 230-pounds respectively. The pilot reported that he had three hours in the accident glider make and model prior to the accident.
Probable cause
the control stick movement being restricted by the pilot's seat-type parachute and the excessive descent rate and airspeed during landing. A factor to the accident was the pilot's lack of familiarity with the aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA188
- Event ID
- 20001212X21380
- Case number
- CHI00LA188
- 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: af3decc0d3143acc48c18cdbdafc558189d1b6d73e44ba5f2c6290ddfed0ffc7; retrieved 2026-09-21T10:35:44.632Z.