ERA12CA352 · Schempp-Hirth VENTUS 2CT
Schempp-Hirth VENTUS 2CT · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin while maneuvering
From Mifflin County Airport (RVL) to Mifflin County Airport (RVL)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA12CA352
- 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
Schempp-Hirth VENTUS 2CT
- 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
- N900BM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mifflin County Airport (RVL), Reedsville, PATo Mifflin County Airport (RVL), Reedsville, PA
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the glider was towed to an altitude of 2,000 feet above ground level, released, and then flown for more than 2 hours without incident. He was subsequently looking for lift and performing "S" turns, while flying away from a ridgeline. During one of the "S" turns, he encountered a 200- to 300 foot-per-minute increase in lift and elected to continue the left turn. However, when the glider turned back toward the ridgeline, it encountered a large downdraft and loss of airspeed. The glider stalled, spun to the left, and struck trees. The glider's tail boom separated and both wings were substantially damaged. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. He further stated that he should not have continued the left turn and that standard training techniques called for continuing to perform "S" turns when close to a ridge or mountain until the glider reaches an altitude of at least 200 to 300 feet above the highest point to provide adequate altitude to recover from possible stalls caused by downdrafts.
Probable cause
The glider’s encounter with atmospheric lift conditions not sufficient to clear terrain, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's decision to continue turning toward a ridgeline.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA12CA352
- Event ID
- 20120522X24616
- Case number
- ERA12CA352
- 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: c8180aac83d2b05bf6da5696aebc2e9d599f6b63a996d0e70d5f31f3902ad053; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:13:26.110Z.