ERA18LA211 · Schweizer SGS233 A
The Atlantic Soaring Club Schweizer SGS233 A · Accident: glider tow event during initial climb
From Harford County Airport (0W3) to Harford County Airport (0W3)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA18LA211
- 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
- 0
- 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
Schweizer SGS233 A
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS233
- 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
- N2832H
- Operator
- The Atlantic Soaring Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Harford County Airport (0W3), Churchville, MDTo Harford County Airport (0W3), Churchville, MD
- Aircraft age
- About 40 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Glider tow event
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot of the tow airplane stated that he was conducting the glider tow operations from an upsloping turf surface that was shorter than his usual takeoff area and was wet in some areas. He reported that the takeoff roll was long due to the humid, hot weather conditions, but he estimated that the glider would clear the tree line off the end of the runway by at least 20 ft. The flight instructor in the glider reported that the tow airplane became airborne about 100 ft later than on earlier flights that day. During the tow aloft, when it became apparent to him that they might not clear trees that were located about 1,300 ft off the end of the runway, he released the glider from the tow airplane, made a right turn to avoid trees, and attempted to execute a forced landing in a nearby field. He had completed about 130° to 150° of the turn when the glider's left wing impacted trees. The pilot of the tow airplane reported there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the tow airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The wind conditions reported at nearby airports included a quartering tailwind at 8 knots. Additionally, the calculated density altitude at the time of takeoff was about 2,500 ft, which would have reduced the tow airplane's climb rate by about 20% and increased its takeoff distance by about 26%. The tailwind, density altitude, runway upslope, and wet turf likely resulted in takeoff and climb performance of the tow airplane that was inadequate for the glider tow operation. The pilots likely did not adequately assess the multiple factors negatively impacting takeoff and climb performance and did not adhere to the operator's standard operating procedures, which prohibited takeoff with a tailwind. Although the conditions were conducive to carburetor icing at glide power, the tow airplane was operating at takeoff power; therefore, it is unlikely that ice would have accumulated at the higher power setting.
Probable cause
The pilots' decision to take off from a wet, upsloping turf runway with a quartering tailwind and elevated density altitude conditions, which degraded takeoff and climb performance and resulted in the glider flight instructor's decision to discontinue the takeoff and the glider's subsequent impact with trees. Also causal was the pilots' failure to adhere to the operator's standard operating procedures, which prohibited takeoff with a tailwind.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA18LA211
- Event ID
- 20180806X75058
- Case number
- ERA18LA211
- 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: 8ce1d5b27c1ed14c092dfd4819f7611f94d601131bc8ea4248ebc70eabba6036; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:03:42.585Z.