LAX86LA134 · Burkhart Grob 102
Skylark North Glider School Burkhart Grob 102 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Mountain Valley Airport (L94) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX86LA134
- 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 102
- Aircraft type
- Grob 102
- 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
- N102JC
- Operator
- Skylark North Glider School
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mountain Valley Airport (L94), Tehachapi, 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
- En route · 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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, not performed
- Weather condition › Downdraft
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
GROB 102 GLIDER COLLIDED WITH TREES 6 MI S OF THE APT. THE PLT WAS SOARING 2 MI S OF THE APT AT 5900 FT MSL AND 6200 FT MSL IN 'WEAK LIFT.' HE ELECTED TO FLY FURTHER S IN THE VIC OF A RIDGELINE WITH AN ELEV APPROX 6000 FT MSL. AGAIN THE PLT EXPERIENCED 'WEAK LIFT' COND THE PLT WAS ABLE TO MAINTAIN BETWEEN 5900 FT MSL AND 6100 FT MSL AND KEEP OPEN FIELDS WITHIN GLIDING DIST. THE PLT HAD MADE SEVERAL PASSES IN THE VIC OF THE RIDGELINE. ON THE 3RD PASS A STRONG DOWNDRAFT AND THE ACFT LOST 125 FT OF ALT AND 15 KTS OF A/S. THE PLT MAINTAINED CONTROL OF THE ACFT AND COLLIDED WITH TREES SHORT OF THE OPEN FIELDS. THE PLT FLT LOG INDICATED HE HAD FLOWN FROM THE APT NINE TIMES SINCE OCT 1984 ONCE IN THE PREVIOUS 90 DAYS. HRLY WX RPTS BY FSS LOC 30 MI S OF APT WINDS 240 DEG AT 6 KTS 20 MIN PRIOR TO THE ACC AND CALM WINDS 40 MIN AFTER THE ACC. THE PLT IND THAT HE OBTAINED HIS WX FROM A PLT OBS PRIOR TO TAKEOFF AND NO FAA WX RPT OR BRIEFINGS WERE OBTAINED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX86LA134
- Event ID
- 20001213X33092
- Case number
- LAX86LA134
- 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: 8d5050a8aaac1312cc691fa2bccb120793285b6c66a1a9c7075b28d74abfacf2; retrieved 2026-09-23T14:58:54.651Z.