WPR11CA486 · Schleicher ASW-27
Schleicher ASW-27 · Accident: loss of lift en route
From Logan-Cache Airport (KLGU) to Logan-Cache Airport (KLGU)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11CA486
- 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
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
- N797V
- Operator
- Cumiford James H JR · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Logan-Cache Airport (KLGU), Logan, UTTo Logan-Cache Airport (KLGU), Logan, UT
- 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
- Loss of lift
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While participating in a soaring contest, the glider pilot entered an area where atmospheric lift was not sufficient. Instead of reversing his course toward better outlanding fields, he continued with the contest course and task. He ultimately ended up in a location where he was forced to attempt an off-airport landing on unsuitable terrain. Immediately upon touchdown, the glider encountered several small boulders that were hidden in the grass, and the left wing tip became snagged in some tall grass, resulting in a loss of directional control. During the resulting ground loop, both wings sustained substantial damage and the empennage tail boom separated from the main part of the fuselage.
Probable cause
The glider pilot did not take timely action to locate a safe outlanding area after entering an area where atmospheric lift was not sufficient to maintain soaring flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11CA486
- Event ID
- 20120102X83427
- Case number
- WPR11CA486
- 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: d7cd749e69e05b5b4b8e11d730a476f4dd4a8a59cef3688cd4c41b3f487edbea; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:02:11.946Z.