LAX84FA275 · Rolladen-Schneider LS3
Rolladen-Schneider LS3 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT) to Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX84FA275
- 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
Rolladen-Schneider LS3
- Aircraft type
- Rolladen Schneider LS3
- 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
- N811
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT), Hemet, CATo Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT), HEMT, CA
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE SAILPLANE WAS FOUND IN A NOSE DOWN ATTITUDE AMOUNG 10 TO 15 FOOT RIBBON-WOOD SHRUBS APPROX 250 FT WNW OF THE DEPARTURE END OF A SMALL AIRSTRIP. BOTH WINGS WERE FOUND DISPLACED FORWARD WITH THE RT ONE FORMING A STRAIGHT LINE EXTENSION FORWARD FM THE FUSELAGE. NO WITNESSES WERE FOUND THAT OBSERVED THE ACCIDENT. THE PLT HAD BEEN ATTEMPTING A 5 HOUR DURATION FLT WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF FLYING OUR 300 MILES TO QUALIFY FOR A DISTANCE AWARD. TRANSMISSIONS TO THE CO-OWNER ON THE GROUND INDICATED HE WAS HAVING TROUBLE MAINTAINING ALT AND HIS ORTENTATION TO HIS PLANNED COURSE. HIS LAST TRANSMISSION STATED THAT HE HAD BEEN MISTAKEN ABOUT HIS PRIOR LOCATION AND THAT HE HAD TO DUMP HIS BALLAST. A BAROGRAPH WAS FOUND IN THE ACFT WHICH INDICATED OUR 2 HOURS OF FLT TIME WITH AT LEAST 2 LOSSES OF ALT BFR THE FINAL DECREASE. IN ADDITION THE LAST ALT DECREASE WAS PRECEEDED BY A SLIGHT INCREASE IN ALT FOLLOWED BY WHAT APPEARS TO BE A RAPID DECREASE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX84FA275
- Event ID
- 20001214X39296
- Case number
- LAX84FA275
- 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: 17c2d628059e909a86f85b6de070d2165c61d167b76b6125195bd8dfb794a720; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:33:36.536Z.