WPR13LA007 · Schleicher ASH25M
Schleicher ASH25M · Accident: loss of lift while maneuvering
From Waimea Kohala Airport (PHMU) to Waimea Kohala Airport (PHMU)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA007
- 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 ASH25M
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASH25
- 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
- N513WK
- Operator
- Woods Woodson K
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waimea Kohala Airport (PHMU), Kamuela, HITo Waimea Kohala Airport (PHMU), Kamuela, HI
- 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
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- 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 on the day of the accident the weather was marginal, with low clouds and shifting wind. He took off in the motorized glider and then stowed the engine. About 1 mile northwest of the airport, the pilot realized that the wind was not conducive to convective activity, and the glider started to descend. The pilot turned back toward the airport and extended the engine/propeller to restart the engine; however, the engine would not start. The pilot entered the downwind leg of the traffic pattern and lowered the landing gear. As the pilot was turning from the downwind to the base leg of the traffic pattern, the left wing of the glider stalled; the glider subsequently impacted the ground and cart-wheeled before coming to a rest in a field. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot reported that he believed the accident occurred because "everything happened so fast,” and he was unable to use a checklist.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the glider after it encountered atmospheric conditions while maneuvering where the lift was not sufficient to maintain flight, which resulted in a stall and impact with terrain during the subsequent approach to land.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA007
- Event ID
- 20121010X84549
- Case number
- WPR13LA007
- 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: b4d515262f7b7b34f129cc98ca7eb5ccceef4be464f8ad304a2cd4088cac0d51; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:08:09.892Z.