WPR12CA288 · DG-Flugzeugbau Gmbh DG-500MB
SLS Partnership DG-Flugzeugbau Gmbh DG-500MB · Accident: loss of lift on approach
From Richland Airport (RLD) to Richland Airport (RLD)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12CA288
- 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
DG-Flugzeugbau Gmbh DG-500MB
- Aircraft type
- DG DG-500
- 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
- N505JL
- Operator
- SLS Partnership
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Richland Airport (RLD), Richland, WATo Richland Airport (RLD), Richland, WA
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
In a written statement, the pilot reported that the accident flight was his second flight of the day. After conducting a series of practice maneuvers, he was returning to the airport. The pilot entered a right traffic pattern and configured the glider for landing. With the landing gear extended and the flaps set at 10 degrees, he opened and tested the spoilers. While on the base leg of the traffic pattern, he noticed that the glider was low, and, as he maneuvered onto final approach, he closed the spoilers (forward activation of the lever). The glider’s sink rate was excessive and he observed that the spoilers visually appeared to be deployed although the control lever was in the full-forward (closed) position. He manipulated the lever back and forth, which had no effect on the spoiler position. The glider impacted railroad tracks about 1,000 feet from the approach end of the runway and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and wings in the accident sequence.
A postaccident examination of the glider revealed that the right wing spoiler’s lower plate appeared to have been rubbing the aft spoiler bay wall until it scraped off the resin. It appeared to have scraped enough material off that it caught on a fabric seam (once sealed in the resin) and would not retract. In other words, the spoiler’s lower plate would not push past the catch due to the exposed fabric edge. The location of the scrape marks and the fabric seam put the spoilers at half extension, which is consistent with the lack of performance the pilot reported. The left wing spoiler’s lower plate bushings were tight, with no play.
Probable cause
The failure of the spoilers to retract because the right wing spoiler’s lower plate became jammed, which resulted in the glider not having enough lift to make it to the runway surface.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12CA288
- Event ID
- 20120703X02730
- Case number
- WPR12CA288
- 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: 697007c2859333c0e89c90d50d67e162974867c3d94323b8849fa09adc8beb8a; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:42:38.617Z.