SEA07LA101 · LET Blanik L-13
LET Blanik L-13 and Glaser-Dirks DG 505 Elan · Accident: collision between aircraft (not in flight) during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07LA101
- 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
Aircraft 1 · LET Blanik L-13
- Aircraft type
- Let BLANIK L-13
- 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
- N101JJ
- Operator
- Henrich G Brigentoff · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crystal Airport (46CN), Llano, CATo Crystal Airport (46CN), Llano, CA
- 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
- Landing · landing roll
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Glaser-Dirks DG 505 Elan
- Aircraft type
- Glaser Dirks DG-505
- 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
- N505TW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crystal Airport (46CN), Llano, CATo Crystal Airport (46CN), Llano, CA
- 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
- Standing
- 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
- Collision between aircraft (not in flight)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not maintained
- Pilot of other aircraft › Directional control, 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
In a written statement, the student pilot reported that he was landing his glider, a LET Blanik L-13, on 25L, while another glider, a DG 505 was positioned on 25R approximately 1000 feet from the departure end of the runway. The DG 505 was hooked to a tow plane and waiting for takeoff on runway 25R. The Blanik L-13 made a normal landing on runway 25L with a touchdown point 500 feet from the end of the runway. During the landing roll, the glider veered to the right and collided with the DG 505 before coming to a stop. The right wing of the Blanik L-13 impacted the left wingtip of the DG 505. The flight instructor in the DG 505 stated in a written report: "there was ample room (for landing), but the pilot made the mistake of looking at the obstruction (me), rather than ahead up the runway." A post accident inspection revealed substantial damage to the Blanik L-13, including distorted wing skins, detached wing attachments and bent bulkheads in the fuselage. The minor damage to the DG 505 was contained to a detachable wing tip.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control during landing roll.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07LA101
- Event ID
- 20070501X00486
- Case number
- SEA07LA101
- 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: a51403e2cd3239fba5d0a06a401a903cef83fa1d2f93aaa6d96cfd1cdf1ea9f9; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:54:26.930Z.