NYC01LA231 · LET 33
LET 33 · Accident: hard landing
From Samuels Field (BRY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC01LA231
- 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
LET 33
- Aircraft type
- Let 33
- 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
- N3301L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Samuels Field (BRY), Bardstown, KYTo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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 › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed on a local close traffic glider flight. After climbing above the traffic pattern altitude of 1,200 feet agl, he released from the tow-plane. Once free, he maneuvered the glider onto the downwind for runway 2, and radioed his position and intentions. He turned base approximately 700 feet agl, and made another radio announcement. About 500 feet agl, the pilot turned final and recalls having a good "angle" to his aiming point. About 150 to 200 feet from the aiming point and 10 feet agl, the indicated airspeed was approximately 50 knots. The pilot then shifted his attention outside the glider for the final phase of the landing. When the glider was about 3 feet agl and "near" the flare point, it started to drop "sharply." The glider touched down hard nose first, and then bounced back into the air. The pilot was able to maintain directional control while the glider made several more bounces before rolling out and coming to a stop. He then exited the airplane under his own power. The pilot had approximately 300 hours of total flight experience, with 7 hours of that in the accident glider make and model. In addition, he had flown 2.5 hours in the accident glider within 30 days of the accident. Examination of the glider revealed no preimpact failures or malfunctions.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper flare, which resulted in a nose-first, hard touchdown.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC01LA231
- Event ID
- 20011018X02113
- Case number
- NYC01LA231
- 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: 4204f4158d96706e7f1f4babf73551e3b359d33c2bfdd2022ab2be97fdcd717b; retrieved 2026-09-22T11:32:36.861Z.