ERA21LA276 · Schweizer SGS 1-26E
Connecticut Soaring Association Schweizer SGS 1-26E · Accident: loss of lift on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA276
- 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
Schweizer SGS 1-26E
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-1
- 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
- N2517H
- Operator
- Connecticut Soaring Association
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1976)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot was towed aloft and released at 3,000 ft above ground level (agl) two miles south of the airport. After practicing air-work south of the airport with no thermal activity, the flight encountered 2 episodes of significant sink (-1,000 ft/min). With a wind from the northwest at 8 knots, he proceeded for a straight-in approach to runway 36 (nearest runway). When the glider was on a 1-mile final for the runway, a 3rd episode of severe sink was encountered. Realizing he would be unable to reach the runway, the pilot executed a low-energy touchdown on the shoulder of a road about 800 ft from the runway threshold.
Postaccident examination of the glider and the submitted NTSB Pilot/Operator Aircraft Accident/Incident report confirmed substantial damage to the left wing. The pilot recommended performing airwork upwind of the airport.
Probable cause
The failure of the student to achieve the proper touchdown point resulting in landing undershoot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA276
- Event ID
- 20210630103378
- Case number
- ERA21LA276
- 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, 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: 38aaed75446e77063cfec0a73ef6a96fad96fbd6b9071332d45971ce2a854c47; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:14:13.819Z.