LAX03FA206 · Schleicher ASW-27B
Schleicher ASW-27B · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water while maneuvering
From L01 · Llano, CA to Jean Airport (0L7)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX03FA206
- 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
Schleicher ASW-27B
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASW-27
- 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
- N271EC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From L01 · Llano, CATo Jean Airport (0L7), Jean, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, 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
The glider impacted trees and mountainous terrain while trying to cross a ridgeline. The glider had released from the tow plane about 1 minute prior to the accident. The glider was equipped with a GPS Flight Data Recorder, which recorded the total duration of the flight as 6 minutes 28 seconds. The last data recorded was at an altitude of 5,941 feet mean sea level (msl), the ground speed was 59 mph. The last recorded location of the glider was 2,000 feet laterally, northwest of the accident site. The elevation at the accident site was 5,798 feet msl. No unusual or adverse weather conditions were reported in the vicinity. No preimpact malfunctions or failures were identified during examination of the wreckage. Lower terrain was located to the rear of the pilot's attempted flight track.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate terrain clearance altitude and his delayed remedial action by not turning away from the ridge when a lack of lift became apparent..
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX03FA206
- Event ID
- 20030702X01012
- Case number
- LAX03FA206
- 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: 8f07ca1fd1f90a64c3222bc126fb07e6cc15c49f10883d114545a348fffc3c28; retrieved 2026-09-20T19:08:38.963Z.