MIA05CA075 · Schleicher ASW 27
Schleicher ASW 27 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From 6FLO · Clermont, FL to Clermont, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA05CA075
- 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 ASW 27
- 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
- N661T
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 6FLO · Clermont, FLTo Clermont, FL
- 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
- 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
- Pilot in command › Spoiler extension, inadvertent
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 after entering the traffic pattern on the downwind leg he noticed a motor glider on the runway. He continued to descend to land while keeping an eye on it, but allowed himself to get low in the traffic pattern. He compensated by cutting the pattern short. As he approached the edge of the runway he attempted to pull the flaps all the way back to clear some particularly tall trees, but mistakenly pulled the spoiler handle. The glider then impacted with trees. The responding FAA accident inspector stated he found the glider suspended by pine trees, about 30 feet above the ground in about a 60-degree nose low attitude. The tail section was broken away from the fuselage and there was extensive damage to both wings. He found the spoilers deployed and the flaps to be in the fully retracted position.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent deploying of the spoilers, while on final approach, resulting in the glider descending and impacting trees.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA05CA075
- Event ID
- 20050401X00395
- Case number
- MIA05CA075
- 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: 50d4092773a40d6ad32c7bcd18dc44e9b8de93285dcf00918ccdbafca53ca60e; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:12:42.087Z.