ATL06CA006 · 1200 G103
1200 G103 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather while maneuvering
From Chilhowee Gliderport (92A) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06CA006
- 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
1200 G103
- Aircraft type
- 1200 G103
- 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
- N381SL
- Operator
- Max Robert Gieseke
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chilhowee Gliderport (92A), Benton, TNTo not recorded
- 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 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
- Guy wire
- 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 › Distance, misjudged
- Pilot in command › Visual lookout, 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 pilot stated that he was flying about 1200 feet above the ground when the glider lost thermal lift. He made a 270-degree turn towards an open area for an emergency landing. As the glider approached the emergency landing area, it was too high for a landing and was losing airspeed. The pilot then turn towards another field and said that he misjudged the distance to that landing area. As the pilot continued to maneuver for an emergency landing, the right wing tip collided with a guy wire on a power pole. The pilot did not report any mechanical problems with the glider.
Probable cause
The pilot's misjudgment of distance and failure to maintain a visual look out during a forced landing resulting in an in flight collision with a guy wire and the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06CA006
- Event ID
- 20051031X01758
- Case number
- ATL06CA006
- 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: 5e3d889e6c9dffd94bcd5f9f5f3491fdaed0258a4e8c8eb9be2bb144a249e58c; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:02:22.848Z.