ERA16LA274 · Alisport SRL SILENT 2 TARGA
Alisport SRL SILENT 2 TARGA · Accident on approach
From London-Corbin Airport/Magee Field (LOZ) to London-Corbin Airport/Magee Field (LOZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA274
- 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
Alisport SRL SILENT 2 TARGA
- Aircraft type
- Alisport SRL SILENT 2
- 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
- N602SL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From London-Corbin Airport/Magee Field (LOZ), London, KYTo London-Corbin Airport/Magee Field (LOZ), London, KY
- Aircraft age
- About 10 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 structures
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Earlier on the day of the accident, the private pilot flew the motor glider in the airport traffic pattern and, after an uneventful landing, secured the glider. The pilot did not report any discrepancies with the canopy during that flight. Before starting another flight later the same day, the pilot noted that the right side of the canopy did not latch properly, which he corrected. The pilot reported that, while on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, the right side of the canopy raised, followed by the left side and nose. He continued flying the glider and secured the engine, but did not retract the engine. After turning from the base to final leg of the traffic pattern, he realized that the glider was too far from the runway. The glider subsequently impacted trees short of the runway then impacted the ground. Postaccident examination of the canopy and canopy latch system revealed no evidence of preimpact failure or malfunction. Examination also revealed that the canopy could be offset from its normal position during the closing process and that the respective latch rod in that situation would be outside the airframe receiver hole, not allowing the canopy to secure properly. Additionally, there was no visual indication to indicate that the canopy was properly secured. It is likely that the pilot did not engage the latch rod into the airframe receiver hole when he closed the right side canopy latch before departure, which resulted in the in-flight canopy opening.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to properly secure the right side of the canopy before takeoff, and an in-flight collision with trees while maneuvering with an open canopy. Contributing to the pilot's failure to properly secure the canopy was the lack of a visual indication that each side of the canopy was properly secured.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA274
- Event ID
- 20160727X42258
- Case number
- ERA16LA274
- 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: acb52aaf46f8d9d336e6f5f035d57a8bf4390615b6f0969e7eddf3e94a077815; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:42:32.205Z.