ERA19LA214 · Pipistrel SINUS
Pipistrel SINUS · Accident while maneuvering
From Lawrence Municipal Airport (LWM) to Lawrence Municipal Airport (LWM)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19LA214
- 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
Pipistrel SINUS
- Aircraft type
- Pipistrel SINUS
- 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
- N269PW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lawrence Municipal Airport (LWM), Haverhill, MATo Lawrence Municipal Airport (LWM), Haverhill, MA
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2013)
- 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
- 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 propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot departed in his motorized glider, climbed to 3,500 ft, then turned off the engine and feathered the two-bladed propeller once he reached the area where he wanted to soar. Since weather conditions were not conducive to soaring, he attempted to return to the airport. In preparation to land he said he restarted the engine without using the glider's documented procedures. The engine started but was not producing the expected power. The pilot thought he had a fuel problem and was not aware that the propeller was still in a feathered condition. Although the engine was operating normally, the feathered propeller was unable to produce the thrust needed to maintain altitude. The pilot subsequently made a forced landing and the airplane impacted a fence about 1.5 miles short of the runway. The glider sustained substantial damage. Postaccident examination of the glider revealed that both propeller blades and the propeller control knob were in the feathered position. Examination of the engine and airplane revealed no mechanical deficiencies that would have precluded normal operation at the time of impact.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to utilize the proper procedure and unfeather the motorized glider’s propeller prior to an in-flight engine restart, resulting in a lack of thrust and subsequent forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19LA214
- Event ID
- 20190704X84511
- Case number
- ERA19LA214
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-07-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 1a4777d86e4b2e17ee5bb6a1642cc193d693d02a314de419c7d4b80d4050b3ab; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:22:27.941Z.