ATL03LA112 · Schleicher ASW28
Schleicher ASW28 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From PRVT · Perry, SC to PRVT · Perry, SC
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03LA112
- 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
Schleicher ASW28
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASW28
- 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
- N128ED
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PRVT · Perry, SCTo PRVT · Perry, SC
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 encounter with weather
- 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
- Weather condition › No thermal lift
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the thermals became weak, the glider began to lose altitude, and landing became imminent. The pilot stated that he headed to a "clear green area beyond a stand of trees." The glider contacted trees before coming to rest on the ground in a nose low attitude. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunctions with the glider prior to the flight. Examination of the wreckage revealed the right wing was cracked at the root and the left wing separated from the fuselage at the root. The fuselage was crushed from the nose section aft to the pilot's station and the canopy was shattered. The empennage was separated from the tail section forward of the tail assembly. According to the pilot, all contest participants received a weather briefing during the initial race briefing.
Probable cause
The loss of thermal lifting action that resulted in the in-flight collision with trees during an attempted forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03LA112
- Event ID
- 20030625X00957
- Case number
- ATL03LA112
- 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: 055aee163b7a26cc7ffcd11bd2275221245a49774e06e48a99ff95ad351b5df1; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:27:01.921Z.