CEN22FA416 · Pipistrel Italia S R L SINUS 912 LSA
Pipistrel Italia S R L SINUS 912 LSA · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN22FA416
- 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
- 1 · 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 Italia S R L SINUS 912 LSA
- Aircraft type
- Pipistrel Italia 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
- N397R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (DWH), Houston, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2021)
- 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 · VFR pattern base
- 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 control in flight
- 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
After an uneventful flight, the powered glider approached the grass airstrip to land. The passenger stated that the altitude seemed to be low during the approach. He stated that as the pilot started to turn the glider, the passenger felt that they were not going to land safely, and yelled to the pilot, “we are not going to make this.” The powered glider dropped down and seemed to stall. The passenger heard the engine rev up, and the powered glider collided with the ground. Examination of the accident site showed evidence of a low-energy impact, consistent with a low-altitude stall. Examination of the airframe and flight controls did not reveal any mechanical anomalies that would have precluded normal operations. Physical examination of the engine and downloaded engine data were consistent with normal engine operation. Cannabis was detected in the toxicology testing of the pilot; however, since no THC or active THC metabolite was detected, it is unlikely that the pilot’s use of cannabis was recent enough to have contributed to the accident. The autopsy on the pilot revealed moderate to severe atherosclerosis of the pilot’s cerebral arteries, coronary arteries, and aorta, as well as chronic kidney and lung conditions. It could not be determined whether these conditions contributed to the accident. The passenger did not report any indications that the pilot was impaired or incapacitated. Based on all available evidence, it is likely that the pilot attempted to extend the glide to the runway during the base turn to final, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain aircraft control, which led to an aerodynamic stall at an altitude where recovery was not possible.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN22FA416
- Event ID
- 20220913105916
- Case number
- CEN22FA416
- 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: f7114dcfa23434833e82076a64c9059718d53636d4a7726700424268ca59e266; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:50:51.934Z.