LAX03LA133 · Schweizer SGS 1-34
Schweizer SGS 1-34 · Accident: hard landing
From Torrey Pines Gliderport (CA84) to Torrey Pines Gliderport (CA84)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA133
- 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 1-34
- 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
- N1169S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Torrey Pines Gliderport (CA84), San Diego, CATo Torrey Pines Gliderport (CA84), San Diego, 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
- 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 › Descent, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Distance/speed, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Flare, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The glider landed hard on a dirt strip, which caused damage to the fuselage, forward bulkhead, and stringers. The gliderport is a publicly owned field situated on top of a mesa along the coastline; the west boundary of the airstrip is a 400-foot sandstone cliff that drops almost vertically to the Pacific ocean. The pilot attempted to land downwind on runway 9 with a 13-knot tailwind. He noted that while turning onto the base leg, his approach was high. To counteract the lift produced by the cliff, he deployed full spoilers. Still high, the pilot put the glider into a slip configuration to lose altitude. The pilot stated that the airspeed was 48 knots. He continued to hold the full spoiler, full slip condition until he felt he had attained the appropriate altitude to make a normal landing. He neutralized the flight controls, and retained full spoiler input. The glider landed hard. The pilot stated that the combination of flying from a lift to a no lift condition, the high downwind ground speed, and the rolling terrain contributed to his misjudging the sink rate, which resulted in a hard landing. The pilot did not report any pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the glider. Winds at the time of the accident were from 230-degrees at 13 knots.
Probable cause
the pilot's misjudgment of the landing flare and descent rate. A contributing factor was the pilot's misjudged speed and distance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA133
- Event ID
- 20030422X00544
- Case number
- LAX03LA133
- 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: f413d0a00edbcd8673de7aff4c8dd6ec4074e271040ebaeb2458f1ed3a09241c; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:30:08.886Z.