CEN09CA269 · LET L-23 Super Blanik
Adrian Soaring Club LET L-23 Super Blanik · Accident: windshear or thunderstorm on approach
From Lenawee County Airport (KADG) to Lenawee County Airport (KADG)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA269
- 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 L-23 Super Blanik
- Aircraft type
- Let L-23
- 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
- N238SB
- Operator
- Adrian Soaring Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lenawee County Airport (KADG), Adrian, MITo Lenawee County Airport (KADG), Adrian, MI
- 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 downwind
- 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
- Windshear or thunderstorm
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before the accident flight, the glider flight instructor observed adverse weather approaching the airport from the south. He wanted to demonstrate a crosswind landing to his student before ceasing glider operations due to the adverse weather. The glider released from the tow airplane around 1,000 feet above ground level and then proceeded on downwind for runway 29. While on final approach, the flight instructor had difficulty maintaining proper runway alignment due to a strong, gusting crosswind. As a result, he elected to land the glider in a grassy area immediately north of the runway. He noted that his forward visibility was limited by heavy rain. The glider impacted a taxiway sign during the landing, substantially damaging the left wing. Weather radar and surface observations indicated that the airport was affected by a thunderstorm shortly after the glider departed on the local area flight. The thunderstorm produced heavy rain, lightning, and strong winds. During the accident flight, the airport's automated surface observing system recorded a peak wind from 220 degrees magnetic at 42 knots. The glider's maximum demonstrated crosswind component for safe approach, landing and aerotow launching was 16 knots.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's inadequate compensation for the strong, gusting crosswind during landing. Contributing to the accident was the flight instructor's decision to attempt flight with known adverse weather approaching the airport.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA269
- Event ID
- 20090430X82824
- Case number
- CEN09CA269
- 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: bb345bbb78f96e36f39ef1992b1ecdfd73a87074725ab197bd36241efc800974; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:00:22.699Z.