WPR14CA219 · PZL-Swidnik PW 5
PZL-Swidnik PW 5 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Bergseth Field (WN76) to Bergseth Field (WN76)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14CA219
- 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
PZL-Swidnik PW 5
- Aircraft type
- PZL Swidnik PW-5
- 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
- N77FZ
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bergseth Field (WN76), Enumclaw, WATo Bergseth Field (WN76), Enumclaw, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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 control in flight
- 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 while entering the airport traffic pattern, the glider encountered additional lift and he was too high for landing. The pilot attempted to descend by deploying the spoilers and performing a couple of 360 degree turns, however the glider did not lose altitude so he initiated a slip to lose the altitude. Just prior to touchdown, as he aligned the glider to runway heading, it stalled and landed hard. During the landing roll, the right wing struck the ground and the glider ground looped. The glider sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and the empennage. The pilot reported no mechanical malfunction or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation, prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the glider during the landing flare which resulted in a stall and hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14CA219
- Event ID
- 20140602X72019
- Case number
- WPR14CA219
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-05-31.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9fed653cf60d577d2e71d97d6c4921330e2fad0f64a3bf633fad59241d58f406; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:43:01.715Z.