FTW02FA243 · Schweizer SGS 1-34
Schweizer SGS 1-34 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From 8F7 · Decatur, TX to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW02FA243
- 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
- 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 1-34
- 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
- N2691H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 8F7 · Decatur, TXTo 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
- 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
- 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
- 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 › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the glider turned final for the runway, a witness observed the glider align with the taxiway. The witness reported that the glider "appeared to stall," then nosed-down and impact the ground short of the taxiway. The pilot had a total of 18.4 hours in gliders, and received a glider rating about 11 months prior to the accident. This was the pilot's second flight in the medium performance glider. The first flight was accomplished earlier in the day of the accident. Flight control continuity was confirmed from the cockpit to all flight control surfaces.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed resulting in an inadvertent stall. A contributing factor was lack of total experience in the make and model of the accident aircraft.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW02FA243
- Event ID
- 20020906X01536
- Case number
- FTW02FA243
- 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, coordinates. 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: 48388e0067acc569c03fd6416ec7b507eaccdf21e7009b6a48853d964ec37365; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:53:23.481Z.