ERA20CA215 · Pipistrel PIPISTREL SINUS 912
Pipistrel PIPISTREL SINUS 912 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Brookline Airport (NH16) to Brookline Airport (NH16)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20CA215
- 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 PIPISTREL SINUS 912
- Aircraft type
- Pipistrel SINUS 912
- 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
- N783TH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brookline Airport (NH16), Brookline, NHTo Brookline Airport (NH16), Brookline, NH
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2019)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the experimental, amateur-built motor glider was landing on a 1,926-ft-long, 24-ft-wide runway with about a 6 knot quartering tailwind. During his first attempted landing the motor glider was high and fast on approach and the pilot elected to go-around. During his second attempt, the motor glider was also high and fast but the pilot elected to continue the approach to landing, using full air brakes and wing flaps. During the approach, he slowed the motor glider to 40 knots (6 knots above stall speed), and the motor glider then seemed to drop from about 10 ft above the runway and land hard. The right landing gear leg collapsed, and the motor glider veered off the right side of the runway, struck a vertical approach slope indicator, and was substantially damaged. Review of the Pilot's Operating Handbook revealed that the final approach speed should always be 55 knots with full flaps regardless of approaching with zero or full airbrakes. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the motor glider that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while landing with a quartering tailwind, which resulted in a loss of control and a hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20CA215
- Event ID
- 20200614X01957
- Case number
- ERA20CA215
- 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: 9b1f7a58f707d5dc269829c48f25f6cd40952557163c83d995c61eda626c15ed; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:50:39.701Z.