CEN09LA353 · Burkhart Grob G103C TWIN III ACRO
Sandhill Soaring Club Burkhart Grob G103C TWIN III ACRO · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From Richmond Field (69G) to Richmond Field (69G)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA353
- 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
- 1 · 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 G103C TWIN III ACRO
- Aircraft type
- Grob G103
- 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
- N103MS
- Operator
- Sandhill Soaring Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richmond Field (69G), Gregory, MITo Richmond Field (69G), Gregory, 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Aerodynamic 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the takeoff and climb were normal during the ground launch of the glider until about 400 feet above ground level when the winch cable broke. The pilot stated that he lowered the nose and established a speed of at least 60 knots. He continued the upwind pattern until the glider was in a position to begin a right 180-degree turn in order to line up with the landing area. He stated: “I could feel in the controls that something was not right and the glider was not responding in the manner that I am accustomed. There were none of the signs of a stall and the glider did not behave like it has any time that I have practiced stalls. Before I could determine the cause or take any action, the nose abruptly dropped and we dove toward the intended runway.” The glider impacted the ground nose down and in a right bank. A postaccident inspection confirmed flight control continuity from each control surface to the aft cockpit control stick with two exceptions. The inspection noted two separation points in the flight control push-pull tubes at the aft fuselage and empennage. Both were consistent in location and appearance with overload failures due to impact forces. No anomalies consistent with a pre-impact failure or malfunction were observed. Metallurgical examination of the winch cable revealed features consistent with overstress fracture.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain sufficient airspeed during the turn to return for landing, which resulted an inadvertent stall/spin. Contributing to the accident was the failure of the ground winch tow cable shortly after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA353
- Event ID
- 20090615X13631
- Case number
- CEN09LA353
- 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. 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: 65a070d90c046c403fc2e2a4d976e3341a078a0e423b31d5ad456a0af6e2be37; retrieved 2026-09-13T20:16:25.324Z.