CEN24LA133 · Schweizer SGS 2-33A
Schweizer SGS 2-33A · Accident: aerodynamic stall/spin during takeoff
From Meadow Lake Airport (KFLY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA133
- 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
- 0
- 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
- N2905H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Meadow Lake Airport (KFLY), Falcon, COTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1979)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Aerodynamic stall/spin
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- 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 stated that during the ground launch he rotated the glider and then accelerated in ground effect before he pulled aft stick to accelerate on the launch arc. He then applied right stick correction for runway alignment after which a gust of wind lifted the right wing. The flight instructor was unable to counter the left roll with flight control inputs and the glider stalled. The tow rope, once side loaded, automatically disconnected as designed. The left wing impacted the ground which resulted in substantial damage to the left wing and empennage. The flight instructor stated that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal glider operation.
Probable cause
The flight instructor’s failure to maintain control during takeoff which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and an impact with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA133
- Event ID
- 20240312193927
- Case number
- CEN24LA133
- 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: 6ee57dd747109f785a1c54e5bcf04c2958a71e2f87bc7e09f3fb7b31ab810612; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:35:27.932Z.