SEA07FA231 · Schempp-Hirth Ventus-CM
Schempp-Hirth Ventus-CM · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV) to Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA07FA231
- 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
Schempp-Hirth Ventus-CM
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth VENTUS-CM
- 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
- N41BM
- Operator
- Geofrey R. Loyns · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NVTo Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV)
- 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
- 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
- Stall/spin
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
"THIS CASE WAS MODIFIED MARCH 25, 2009."
The pilot departed in a 58-foot-wingspan single-seat motor glider for a round-robin cross-country flight. The intended flight path passed over steep, rugged, mountainous terrain, which had a maximum elevation of 14,100 feet. Four other gliders departed with the accident glider, and the four returned to their departure base about an hour later due to unfavorable winds out of the south and weak lift. The pilot was very experienced with the terrain and proceeded on. His last communication with the four returning gliders was that he was at 16,700 feet and he was headed for a major peak (13,700 feet) on his route of flight. Search and rescue activities were initiated when the pilot failed to return. Friends of the pilot located the missing glider two days later. The wreckage impact signatures, ground scars, and the debris field were consistent with the glider impacting the mountain in a nose-down vertical descent consistent with a spin. The recorded wind at a nearby weather station was from 180 degrees at 16 knots, gusting to 24 knots. The mountain peak and gorge type topographic features within 1.5 miles directly upwind from the accident site could easily have generated mountain wave and turbulent conditions in the area of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control while maneuvering and the inadvertent entry into a stall/spin. Contributing to the accident were the mountainous terrain conditions, unfavorable wind conditions, and the terrain-induced turbulent wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA07FA231
- Event ID
- 20070821X01223
- Case number
- SEA07FA231
- 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. 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: fefd46e2ee2b65273f685468e3da991773a829a478c9792a6a5286740da6e38d; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:22:46.520Z.