ERA14CA426 · Schleicher ASW 19B
Schleicher ASW 19B · Accident: loss of lift en route
From Dansville Municipal Airport (DSV) to Corning Painted Post Airport (7N1)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA14CA426
- 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 19B
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASW-19
- 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
- N31GF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dansville Municipal Airport (DSV), Dansville, NYTo Corning Painted Post Airport (7N1), Corning, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1983)
- 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 · cruise
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The glider pilot stated that when he reached his intended destination, lift increased and he decided to fly back to the departure airport. As the glider flew closer to the departure airport, the lift decreased and the glider was about 800 feet above ground level, approximately 10 miles away from the departure airport. The pilot was unable to locate another airport and elected to land in a field. While on final approach for the field, the pilot observed a small hill prior to the field and turned left to avoid a straight-on collision. The left wing subsequently struck the hill and the glider came to rest upright in the field. The pilot added that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions with the glider. Examination of the glider by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed damage to the left wing, forward fuselage, and tailcone.
Probable cause
The pilot's decision to attempt a return to his departure airport which resulted in the glider's encounter with atmospheric conditions where the lift was not sufficient to maintain flight and an off-airport landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA14CA426
- Event ID
- 20140908X01848
- Case number
- ERA14CA426
- 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: 5299ea6a620f8a7b0f2b2355b69b43b1eee8365ff1dc6ae66856dcba52b62756; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:43:56.098Z.