DEN08CA056 · Burkhart Grob G-103A TWIN II ACRO
Burkhart Grob G-103A TWIN II ACRO · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From Alamogordo White Sands Regional Airport (KALM) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN08CA056
- 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
Burkhart Grob G-103A TWIN II ACRO
- Aircraft type
- Grob G-103
- 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
- N223WP
- Operator
- Christian Nickel
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alamogordo White Sands Regional Airport (KALM), Alamogordo, NMTo 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
- Landing
- Defining eventThe 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 with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
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 encountered turbulence at approximately 200 feet above ground level. The glider gained altitude such that the pilot lost sight of the tow plane. The pilot decided to release the glider and attempt a right turn back to the airport to land. He stated, "the altitude was too low to complete the turn, so I leveled the wings and landed the glider off-field." Upon landing, the left wing contacted the terrain and the glider ground looped, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage and horizontal stabilizer.
Probable cause
The unsuitable terrain for landing. Contributing to the accident were the pilot's encounter with turbulence and the loss of visual contact with the tow plane.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN08CA056
- Event ID
- 20080304X00255
- Case number
- DEN08CA056
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: b8731cd2b701040b3d813f1b5341031dfb50d5ae959adb5aa89deb178084b617; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:23:58.227Z.