DEN07LA152 · Slingsby Swallow Type T.45
Slingsby Swallow Type T.45 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Sunflower Aerodrome Gliderport (SN76) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN07LA152
- 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
Slingsby Swallow Type T.45
- Aircraft type
- Slingsby SWALLOW TYPE T 45
- 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
- N7476
- Operator
- Sonja Flesberg
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sunflower Aerodrome Gliderport (SN76), Hutchinson, KSTo 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
- 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
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Stall/spin, inadvertent
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 achieved flight as normal prior to rotation by the tow plane. As the glider continued along the runway there seemed to be some sort of external downward force like a wind gust. The glider wheel touched the runway and the glider bounced into the air, gaining altitude rapidly. The pilot released the glider tow line and continued straight. The pilot stated that the tow plane was not in sight and there was an impression that the tow plane may have taken off. The pilot banked the glider to the right to return to the airport. During the turn the right wing stalled and the glider lost altitude rapidly. The glider impacted terrain to the west of the runway on airport property. The pilot stated that the accident could have been prevented by making a small right turn and landing straight ahead on the remaining runway.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain aircraft control during a low altitude release resulting in an inadvertent stall/spin. Contributing factors were the pilot's decision to turn back to the airport at low altitude and the wind gust.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN07LA152
- Event ID
- 20070907X01321
- Case number
- DEN07LA152
- 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: 8374763b0503a55b803ca0c5f3d7b0c7c703ff43051b9d05b70c04e975799e1c; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:44:36.060Z.