ERA21LA330 · Schweizer SGS 2-33A
Civil Air Patrol Schweizer SGS 2-33A · Accident: glider tow event during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA21LA330
- 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 2-33A
- Aircraft type
- Schweizer SGS-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
- N2805H
- Operator
- Civil Air Patrol
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 43 years (built 1978)
- 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
- Glider tow event
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Two glider pilots were conducting a simulated rope break from 200ft above ground level (AGL). The glider pilot had requested the tow pilot sidestep right on upwind further than normal to allow for enough distance between the upwind leg and the runway. After a normal takeoff, the tow pilot sidestepped further right than the previous flights. After the tow rope was released, the glider pilot made a steep turn back toward the runway and realized that the runway was beyond glide distance. The pilot elected to land the glider in a clear area beside a dirt road, but during the landing, the left wing impacted a tree, resulting in substantial damage to the wing. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The check pilot's failure to account for the extended departure distance from the airport during a simulated tow rope break and recovery.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA21LA330
- Event ID
- 20210818103723
- Case number
- ERA21LA330
- 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: a02da0b7acc2f11f8d96a677b38ae56b8f7be049c78e48ebefcc45693c0e65f8; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:26:11.649Z.