CEN10LA459 · Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-2B
Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-2B and Alexander Schleicher Gmbh & Co ASW 27-18 · Accident: midair collision while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN10LA459
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Schempp-Hirth VENTUS-2B
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth VENTUS-2
- 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
- N7470C
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Garner Field (KUVA), Uvalde, TXTo Garner Field (KUVA), Uvalde, TX
- 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
- 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 · Alexander Schleicher Gmbh & Co ASW 27-18
- 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
- N8829A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Garner Field (KUVA), Uvalde, TXTo Garner Field (KUVA), Uvalde, TX
- 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
- En route
- 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 › Physical
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While participating in a soaring competition, a Schempp-Hirth glider and an Alexander Schleicher glider collided while in flight. The Schempp-Hirth glider was outbound from the last way point for the competition course and the Alexander Schleicher glider was inbound to this same point. The courses inbound and outbound from this way point are near reciprocals of one another. According to the pilot of the Alexander Schleicher glider and the damage to both gliders, the empennage and tailwheel of the Schempp-Hirth glider impacted the right horizontal stabilizer and elevator of the Alexander Schleicher glider. The speed, altitude, and course of each glider would not have allowed enough time for either pilot to see the other glider and react with enough time to avoid a collision. An examination of the airframe and related systems of both gliders revealed no anomalies.
Probable cause
Both glider pilots’ inability to see and avoid the other resulting in a mid-air collision.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN10LA459
- Event ID
- 20100805X84210
- Case number
- CEN10LA459
- 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: 20ece687a8e86b42182203a00b357310779956b4a12b60f1f5b7279d1fe3c8c8; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:05:16.124Z.