DEN85FTM03 · Killian BRIEGLEB BG-12B BRIEGLEB B
Killian BRIEGLEB BG-12B BRIEGLEB B · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From 36U to 36U
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN85FTM03
- 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
- 1 · 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
Killian BRIEGLEB BG-12B BRIEGLEB B
- Aircraft type
- Killian BRIEGLEB BG-12B
- 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
- N997
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 36UTo 36U
- 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
- 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 › Aircraft handling, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE ACFT WAS A GEORGE KILLIAN/BRIEGLEB BG-12B, EXPERIMENTAL, HOME BUILT GLIDER. AN OWNER REPORTED THAT THE PLT HAD COME FROM NEW MEXICO TO BUY THE GLIDER. AFTER SPENDING ABOUT 3 HRS IN FAMILIARIZATION TRAINING, THE PLT WENT ON HIS 1ST FLT WHICH WAS UNEVENTFUL. HE THEN WENT ON A 2ND FLT WHICH WAS APPROXIMATELY 1 HR IN DURATION. AS THE GLIDER WAS ON FINAL APCH TO LAND & WAS AT ABOUT 100 TO 150 FT AGL, IT ENTERED A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE & CRASHED. ACCORDING TO WITNESSES, THE GLIDER SMOOTHLY PITCHED OVER INTO A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE WITHOUT STALLING. AN EXAM OF THE FLT CONTROLS WAS MADE, BUT NO PREIMPACT MALFUNCTION OR FAILURE OF THE ELEVATOR CONTROL SYS WAS FOUND. A PATHOLOGICAL EXAM OF THE PLT REVEALED NO MEDICAL PROBLEMS THAT WOULD HAVE RESULTED IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN85FTM03
- Event ID
- 20001214X36739
- Case number
- DEN85FTM03
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1985-06-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3677d3d7a7c2e967841fdc66297851033081fbbd5426cf5dcdcb4bf07d54166d; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:58:07.796Z.