ERA15LA022 · Piper PA-25-235
Sugarbush Soaring Assn Piper PA-25-235 and Schempp-Hirth MINI NIMBUS HS7 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA022
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Piper PA-25-235
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-25
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N8514L
- Operator
- Sugarbush Soaring Assn
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warren-Sugarbush Airport (0B7), Warren, VTTo Warren-Sugarbush Airport (0B7), Warren, VT
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Aircraft 2 · Schempp-Hirth MINI NIMBUS HS7
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth MINI NIMBUS HS7
- 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
- C-FTSI
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Warren-Sugarbush Airport (0B7), Warren, VTTo Warren-Sugarbush Airport (0B7), Warren, VT
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1977)
- 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
- Takeoff · rejected takeoff
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- 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
A glider collided with a tow plane on the runway following an aborted glider-tow flight. The tow plane pilot said that, during the takeoff roll with the glider in tow, he noticed fuel spraying onto the windscreen. He estimated that the airplane was about 40 percent of the way down the runway, noted that it was still on the ground, and believed that sufficient runway remained for both aircraft to abort the takeoff, so he chose to abort the takeoff. When he aborted the tow, he announced his intention over the radio and turned the airplane right to clear the runway for the trailing glider. The glider pilot said that, when the takeoff was aborted, he turned the glider right but that he was unable to avoid the tow plane in front of him because it had also turned right into the glider's path. The glider overtook the tow plane, and its left wing passed through the tow plane's propeller arc, and its tail section collided with the airplane's right wing and then separated from the glider. Both pilots stated that they had not discussed the aborted takeoff procedure before the flight. The tow plane pilot reported that the aborted takeoff procedure at the accident airport called for the tow plane pilot to turn right and for the glider pilot to land straight ahead. The glider pilot reported that the aborted takeoff procedure at his home airport called for glider pilot to turn right.
Both pilots reported that there were no mechanical anomalies with either airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The tow plane pilot reported that the airplane had been serviced with fuel before takeoff and that it was fuel that had spilled during the servicing that sprayed onto his windscreen during the takeoff. He added that the airplane did not have a fuel leak before or after the accident.
Probable cause
The glider pilot’s failure to avoid the tow plane after the aborted takeoff due to both pilots’ failure to review the aborted takeoff procedure before the flight, which led to both pilots turning right after the aborted takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA022
- Event ID
- 20141021X94521
- Case number
- ERA15LA022
- 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: eaff6db5a37504e31bb6d4b664048a25425aee9f5188f0992e0d0f07a8456930; retrieved 2026-09-13T18:23:21.406Z.