LAX08CA003 · LET Blanik L-13
LET Blanik L-13 · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT) to Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX08CA003
- 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
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
- N510CS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT), Hemet, CATo Hemet Ryan Airport (HMT)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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 collision with object
- 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 › Raising of flaps, not performed
- Pilot in command › Speed brakes, improper use of
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 encountered a loss of lift during the latter part of the pattern and subsequently collided with the airport boundary fence on final approach. The pilot stated that during the downwind leg, he partially deployed the flaps, and partially opened the air brake. He encountered a significant loss of lift on the final leg, but could not recall whether he closed the air brake. A photograph taken immediately after the accident by the pilot's flight instructor showed the air brake to be open, with the flaps deployed. The pilot was checked out by his flight instructor to fly the L-13 glider earlier that day. The accident flight was his first solo flight in this glider type.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a proper descent rate due to his failure to close the air brake and/or partially retract the flaps during an encounter with lost lift on final approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX08CA003
- Event ID
- 20071029X01685
- Case number
- LAX08CA003
- 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: c4c9b3e3a53fb6404452cef99274db0fb99fd043f0e5d3c2aa72b1e1a0ae8db1; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:22:16.465Z.