CEN21LA226 · I.C.A.-Brasov (ROMANIA) IS-28B2
Sky Soaring I.C.A.-Brasov (ROMANIA) IS-28B2 · Accident during initial climb
From Sky Soaring Airport (55LL) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA226
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
I.C.A.-Brasov (ROMANIA) IS-28B2
- Aircraft type
- I C A Brasov (romania) IS-28
- 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
- N41CR
- Operator
- Sky Soaring
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sky Soaring Airport (55LL), Hampshire, ILTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 44 years (built 1977)
- 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
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor of the instructional glider flight reported that during a winch launch with the student pilot, the glider accelerated to 70 kts exceeding the winch launch speed. As the flight instructor attempted to decrease the airspeed to the normal winch launch speed, the weak/safety link broke and the glider separated from the towing cable. The flight instructor attempted to maneuver the glider for a landing back to the runway; however, during the turn to enter the final approach, the glider’s critical angle of attack was exceeded, and the glider entered an aerodynamic stall/spin. The glider impacted trees and terrain coming to rest on a grass field. The glider sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and to both wings. The flight instructor reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the glider that would have precluded normal operation. The flight instructor also reported that he should have maintained sufficient airspeed to prevent a “stall/spin” at a low altitude.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s failure to maintain aircraft control resulting in the exceedance of the glider’s critical angle of attack following the breakage of the weak/safety link during a winch launch, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and spin, and subsequent impact with trees and terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA226
- Event ID
- 20210519103108
- Case number
- CEN21LA226
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. 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: 5c14a1175a123903bf512bb855434c4349d9078f2779c86d99a4ff8052acd195; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:03:53.311Z.