LAX05CA161 · Schempp-Hirth Discus 2b
Schempp-Hirth Discus 2b · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From KP48 · Peoria, AZ to KP48 · Peoria, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX05CA161
- 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
Schempp-Hirth Discus 2b
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth DISCUS 2
- 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
- N15MM
- Operator
- John H Weber · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From KP48 · Peoria, AZTo KP48 · Peoria, AZ
- 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 · descent
- 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
- 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 › Downdraft
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 was damaged during a forced landing 1.5 miles south of the landing strip in rocky desert terrain. The pilot was on a circular cross-country flight designed to depart, and then return to the same airport. Along the route there were numerous navigation turn points to maintain a proper track on the course. About 250 miles into the flight, and at the second to last turn point, the pilot determined that he did not have enough altitude to make it to the last turn point before heading back to the airport. His flight computer indicated that he had enough altitude to go directly to the destination airport with a 1,000-foot altitude margin. While returning he encountered some downward subsiding air of about 7-8 knots (700-800 feet per minute downdraft). At this point he determined that he would not make it to the destination airport and decided to divert to an auxiliary dirt landing strip to make a precautionary landing. The pilot did not make it all the way to the auxiliary strip and landed about 1.5 miles south, in rocky desert terrain. The pilot stated that the glider had no mechanical failures or malfunctions during the flight.
Probable cause
the glider pilot encountered a downdraft that forced him to land in rough terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX05CA161
- Event ID
- 20050601X00706
- Case number
- LAX05CA161
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2005-05-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9b42cd0f0919b26f030694cb37d9d56cc520f5f5285d440a6129d17885db4cbe; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:57:23.951Z.