WPR15LA142 · Schleicher ASW 27
Schleicher ASW 27 · Accident: turbulence encounter while maneuvering
From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV) to Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA142
- 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
- Unknown
Schleicher ASW 27
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASW-27
- 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
- N27QV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NVTo Minden-Tahoe Airport (MEV), Minden, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 17 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
- 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
- Turbulence encounter
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot was conducting a local personal flight in a glider. The pilot reported that, while about 14,000 ft, he attempted to navigate through a gap in the clouds, but the clouds quickly filled in and engulfed the glider. The glider's airspeed increased, and the wings subsequently separated from the glider. The pilot bailed out of the glider and descended to the ground using a personal parachute; the glider fell to the ground in pieces.
Postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of any preexisting structural anomalies. A review of weather conditions reported in the area about the time of the accident revealed sustained wind from the south between about 25 and 30 knots with gusts between 30 and 35 knots. Geostationary weather satellite imagery showed standing clouds over the region in the hour or two leading up to the accident, and polar-orbiting satellite data depicted clouds along the final portion of the glider's flightpath about 40 minutes before the accident. Given the clouds and wind, the atmosphere was likely unstable, which is indicative of severe, transient, and short-lived turbulence. It is likely that the glider encountered severe turbulence while the pilot was maneuvering it in the clouds, which caused the glider's airspeed to increase beyond its structural limitations and led to its in-flight breakup.
Probable cause
The glider's encounter with severe turbulent atmospheric conditions after the pilot inadvertently entered clouds, which led to his inability to maintain a proper airspeed and the subsequent in-flight breakup of the glider.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA142
- Event ID
- 20150407X11506
- Case number
- WPR15LA142
- 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: 04b7dc668885b406549652c0b43e4324f6030aa19b19ad3baf855fd2d83a381d; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:12:47.875Z.