GAA18CA314 · Schleicher ASW 20C
Schleicher ASW 20C · Accident: abrupt maneuver during landing
From J. Randy McKnight Nephi Municipal Airport (U14) to J. Randy McKnight Nephi Municipal Airport (U14)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA314
- 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 20C
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher ASW
- 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
- N428US
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From J. Randy McKnight Nephi Municipal Airport (U14), Nephi, UTTo J. Randy McKnight Nephi Municipal Airport (U14), Nephi, UT
- Aircraft age
- About 35 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
- Landing
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The glider pilot reported that, while en route on a local flight, the "lift died," and he decided to return to the departure airport. He was about 3 to 4 miles from the airport when the glider experienced a "moderate to severe sink," and he decided to set up to land in a nearby field. He added that, about 200 ft above the ground, the glider encountered a strong updraft that lasted between 15 and 30 seconds, and "even with full spoilers, it was obvious [he] would not be able to land." He stowed the spoilers, pitched up slightly, and focused on another landing site.
The pilot further reported that, during touchdown at the alternate landing site, he noticed there were "sprinkler pipes and wheels." He added, "it looked like [he] would still hit the sprinkler pipes," so to avoid the industrial farm sprinklers ahead, the pilot abruptly pitched the nose down and landed hard on the field.
The glider sustained substantial damage to the wings, fuselage, and empennage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the glider that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The glider’s encounter with atmospheric conditions where the lift was not sufficient to maintain flight, which resulted in a hard off-airport landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA314
- Event ID
- 20180530X05032
- Case number
- GAA18CA314
- 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: a039190acefdafb43f2ba0d544e71d8cd72ecf6316aaaada5ebc6e561dc7cead; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:20:06.162Z.