ATL07CA101 · Schempp-Hirth Discus-CS
Schempp-Hirth Discus-CS · Accident during initial climb
From Freehold Airport (1I5) to Freehold Airport (1I5)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL07CA101
- 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-CS
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth DISCUS-CS
- 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
- N42CA
- Operator
- Paul F. Quinn · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Freehold Airport (1I5), Freehold, NYTo Freehold Airport (1I5), Freehold, NY
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Glider/tow release, inadvertent activation
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 the takeoff was normal. His glider and the tow plane were on the initial climb out. During the climb they began to encounter heavy turbulence. At 200 feet AGL he continued to encounter heavy turbulence and bumped his head twice against the canopy. He inadvertently hit the release cable handle at a low altitude, and disconnected from the tow plane. He attempted to return to the airport and collided with trees after losing lift. The pilot did not report any flight control anomalies with the glider.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent activation of the tow release handle at a low altitude following an encounter with turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL07CA101
- Event ID
- 20070828X01254
- Case number
- ATL07CA101
- 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: 698160862c7d397391cb4665f71e92c475719a3526f0972524e08e7290594926; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:42:06.058Z.