ERA20CA178 · Schempp Hirth VENTUS 2CT
Schempp Hirth VENTUS 2CT · Accident: loss of lift while maneuvering
From Merlin Aerodrome (2VA3) to Merlin Aerodrome (2VA3)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20CA178
- 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
Schempp Hirth VENTUS 2CT
- Aircraft type
- Schempp Hirth VENTUS 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
- N514TW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merlin Aerodrome (2VA3), Amelia Court House, VATo Merlin Aerodrome (2VA3), Amelia Court House, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 13 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Loss of lift
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After departing on a local flight, the pilot of the motor glider crossed a ridge line into a valley at an altitude of about 8,000 ft mean sea level, and then glided to the south in search of lift, but was unsuccessful. He decided to land on a brown, flat, field that appeared to be recently tilled. The pilot set up for a landing, and then deployed the glider's sustainer engine. The engine did not start, so he continued his approach to land. During the landing, the right wing struck the ground, the glider ground looped, and was substantially damaged. The flight manual for the sustainer engine advised that, the sustainer engine should only be extended and started when there was suitable terrain for landing within gliding distance, and furthermore, below 984 ft above ground level, starting attempts were to be avoided "so as to have a safe height left for planning the approach pattern should the engine fail to run!" The pilot stated that there was no mechanical malfunction or failure with the glider, and that he would recommend trying to start the sustainer engine at a higher altitude.
Probable cause
A loss of thermal lift during a motor glider flight, which resulted in an off-airport landing. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's delayed attempted engine start.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20CA178
- Event ID
- 20200512X74404
- Case number
- ERA20CA178
- 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: eba66a221e80fb9e59df85bea3260de086f325aec237a6421a5c58b4f97d0e79; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:35:24.836Z.