LAX03LA165 · PZL-Bielsko SZD-50-3
PZL-Bielsko SZD-50-3 · Accident: abrupt maneuver on approach
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV) to Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03LA165
- 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
PZL-Bielsko SZD-50-3
- Aircraft type
- PZL Bielsko SZD-50
- 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
- N503HC
- Operator
- High Country Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NVTo Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NV
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Dual student › Spoiler extension, improper
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
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, in tow, turned right downwind at 500 feet above ground level (agl), the student deployed the spoilers. The certified flight instructor (CFI) released the glider from the tow plane, and locked and closed the spoiler handle. According to the CFI, she wanted to land on a runway at the airport, but the student was "frozen" on the flight controls. By the time he released the controls, it was not possible to reach the runway, so the CFI executed a forced landing on an airport access road. Prior to touchdown, the left wing struck a 4-foot-tall sagebush, the glider turned, and impacted on the shoulder of the road.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to adequately supervise the student, which resulted in the improper deployment of the spoilers by the student. A factor was the high vegetation on the landing surface.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03LA165
- Event ID
- 20030605X00794
- Case number
- LAX03LA165
- 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: 6729f901600fe50adef0539b3e93ac1e577bbff326d92a86868b35763b32aa2a; retrieved 2026-09-22T09:15:34.791Z.