WPR10FA068 · Schleicher ASW-27
Schleicher ASW-27 and Calsoar Piper PA-25-235 · Accident: midair collision on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10FA068
- 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
- 2 · 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
Aircraft 1 · Schleicher ASW-27
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASW-27
- 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
- N127AL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Middletown, CA (private airstrip)To Middletown, CA (private airstrip)
- 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
- 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
- Midair collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Piper PA-25-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-25
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N7023Z
- Operator
- Calsoar
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Middletown, CA (private airstrip)To Middletown, CA (private airstrip)
- 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
- 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
- Midair collision
- 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
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane departed the airport with the glider in tow. Gusting crosswind conditions existed at the time of the takeoff and witnesses reported that the glider appeared to be encountering turbulence during the climb out. The glider released from the tow plane a short time later, maneuvered in the vicinity of the release, and then simultaneously returned to the airport at the same time as the airplane. Both aircraft entered downwind legs on each side of the same runway, with the glider on the right downwind and the airplane on the left downwind. They continued on downwind, and turned onto their respective base legs about the same time. As both aircraft turned onto final, they collided. Paint transfer marks, Global Positioning System (GPS) flight track data, and a photograph taken just after the collision indicated that the airplane's right wing and right main landing gear struck the empennage of the glider just aft of the cabin. The glider's flight track back to the airport, and the use of the right-hand traffic pattern likely indicated that the pilot encountered unfavorable weather conditions that necessitated use of the non-standard pattern. Additionally, GPS flight track data indicated that the glider overshot the runway centerline during the turn from base to final, indicative of him encountering a crosswind. The airplane was not equipped with a radio transceiver, and the left-hand traffic pattern was considered standard for the private airstrip. The seating positions of both pilots, and the relative distance between the aircraft would have given both pilots an unobstructed view of the opposing aircraft during the downwind and base legs of the arrival. 14 CFR 91.113(d)(2) and (3)(e) specifies general right of way rules and rules for traffic pattern operations. In part, a glider has the right-of-way over an airship, powered parachute, weight-shift-control aircraft, airplane, or rotorcraft. For traffic pattern operations when aircraft are approaching each other head-on, or nearly so, each pilot of each aircraft shall alter course to the right.
Probable cause
The failure of both pilots to see and avoid the other airplane. Contributing to the accident was the pilot flying a non-standard approach to the private airstrip.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10FA068
- Event ID
- 20091128X53127
- Case number
- WPR10FA068
- 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: c9770c0d2da5a2f6261cb3013cf5acc6cc0394d72fa73dd724dd5119bf4f88bf; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:05:02.788Z.