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LAX86LA360 · Burkhart Grob G102 III B

5 Sept 1986 · California City, CA, United States

Burkhart Grob G102 III B · Accident en route

From California City Municipal Airport (L71) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
LAX86LA360
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 G102 III B

Aircraft type
Grob G102
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
N630BG
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From California City Municipal Airport (L71), California City, 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 · descent
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
Miscellaneous/other
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/spin
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Destroyed

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Airspeed, inadequate
  • Pilot in command › Diverted attention
  • Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadequate
  • Window, flight compartment window/windshield › Open

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE PLT STATED HE WAS TOWED TO AN ALT OF APRX 2,000 FT AGL. AFTER RELEASE THE CANOPY CAME OPEN AND THE PLT RETURNED TO THE ARPT. ON FINAL APCH HE NOTICED THE AIRSPEED INDICATOR WAS INDICATING 'LOW FORTIES'. THE PLT STATED THE NEXT THING HE REMEMBERED WAS 'LOOKING FORWARD AND SEEING THE GROUND, WITH SLIGHT ROTATION. SPIN!' THE ACFT COLLIDED WITH THE GROUND IN A 45 DEG NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE. A PLT WHO WITNESSED THE ACCIDENT INDICATED HE FIRST OBSERVED THE GLIDER ON FINAL APCH. HE STATED, 'IT LOOKED LEVEL AND NORMAL, THEN THE NOSE CAME DOWN IN A STEEP ATTITUDE (NOT UN-COMMON) THE NOSE CAME UP,' AT ABOUT 50 FT AGL AND THEN THE NOSE WENT LEFT.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record LAX86LA360
Event ID
20001213X34825
Case number
LAX86LA360
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: 5a60460f83551e67d0e2df2050149564815b04c9c43d84132518697579249e1c; retrieved 2026-09-21T16:51:42.207Z.