GAA16CA430 · PZL-Swidnik PW 6U
Cypress Soaring PZL-Swidnik PW 6U · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during takeoff
From Crystal Airport (46CN) to Crystal Airport (46CN)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA430
- 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 6U
- Aircraft type
- PZL Swidnik PW-6
- 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
- N212EC
- Operator
- Cypress Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Crystal Airport (46CN), Llano, CATo Crystal Airport (46CN), Llano, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2003)
- 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
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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
According to the glider pilot, while being towed during the takeoff roll, the glider encountered a bump and he heard a loud bang. He reported that he was contacted by radio and informed that the aft canopy had separated from the glider. The pilot recalled that although the glider controllability was normal he communicated with the tow airplane pilot, executed one pattern and landed the glider. The pilot reported that during the preflight inspection he failed to properly close and lock the two canopy latches for the aft canopy. The glider sustained substantial damage to the aft canopy and the vertical stabilizer.
The pilot reported that were no mechanical failures or anomalies with any portion of the glider that would have prevented normal flight operations.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to properly secure the two aft canopy latches during the preflight inspection, which resulted in the canopy separating from the glider during the takeoff roll and substantial damage to the vertical stabilizer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA430
- Event ID
- 20160816X14228
- Case number
- GAA16CA430
- 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: 5de90f3b2caf367dae9ea9692db09e6ab1af219646434f6855ff6f5efdae258d; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:09:50.362Z.