SEA01LA147 · Schweizer SGS 1-26B
Schweizer SGS 1-26B · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT) to Ephrata Municipal Airport (EPH)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA01LA147
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Schweizer SGS 1-26B
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-1
- 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
- N5768S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pangborn Memorial Airport (EAT), Wenatchee, WATo Ephrata Municipal Airport (EPH), Ephrata, WA
- 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
- Landing
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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 › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not attained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The accident flight was intended to be a solo cross-country instructional glider flight over a distance of about 29 nautical miles. The flight instructor stated that he instructed the student to climb to at least 6,000 feet above sea level (4,751 feet above the departure airport and 4,724 feet above the destination airport) prior to leaving the local area. The glider had a maximum lift-to-drag ratio of 23. The instructor reported that when the student failed to find lift, and after waiting until too low to return to the departure airport, he delayed selecting a safe landing site until only one option remained. The student's approach was high and was made with a tail wind. The glider overshot its intended landing area, a 400-foot-long open field, and landed between trees near a cherry orchard approximately 2 miles from the departure airport, sustaining substantial damage in the landing. The flight instructor reported that no mechanical malfunction or failure was involved in the accident. The student pilot's certificate was issued about 1 1/2 months before the accident, and the student pilot's flight instructor reported that the student had 30 hours total pilot time including 8 hours in the accident make and model.
Probable cause
The student pilot's improper inflight planning and decision (delay in establishing an approach to a suitable landing area) and his subsequent failure to attain the proper glidepath for the selected landing area, resulting in an overshoot of the selected landing area and collison with trees during landing. Factors included the pilot's lack of experience, and trees in the vicinity of the landing site.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA01LA147
- Event ID
- 20010815X01692
- Case number
- SEA01LA147
- 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: f48dcae22c53e27cea122c35d608d190d5f39ea944bafcb30a5b89174a778f0e; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:40:38.223Z.