CEN24LA219 · Schweizer SGS 1-23H-15
Tulsa Skyhawks Soaring Club Schweizer SGS 1-23H-15 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Mid America Industrial Airport (H71) to Mid America Industrial Airport (H71)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA219
- 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 1-23H-15
- 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
- N8667R
- Operator
- Tulsa Skyhawks Soaring Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mid America Industrial Airport (H71), Chouteau, OKTo Mid America Industrial Airport (H71), Chouteau, OK
- Aircraft age
- About 61 years (built 1963)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Minor
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
The student glider pilot reported that while conducting an approach to runway 18, he noted that another glider was staged on the runway. The student made a radio call advising that he would land on the grass between taxiway A3 and A4. The instructor on the ground radioed to the student pilot to “land short”. The student pilot stated that he interpreted the instruction to land short of his intended landing point between taxiways A2 and A3 and initiated a forward slip. The instructor radioed to clarify that he meant to land short on the runway behind the other glider. The student pilot attempted to extend his glide to make his first intended landing point between taxiways A3 and A4. He stated that he did not think he could make the A3 and A4 taxiways and extended his dive brake and spoilers to land between A2 and A3. The student pilot reported that about that time a wind gust stopped and the glider lost airspeed and developed a significant sink rate. The glider landed hard which resulted in serious injury to the student pilot and minor damage to the glider. The towplane pilot located on the runway at the taxiway A3 intersection reported that he saw the glider lose its forward motion and drop in a flat attitude to the ground. Based on the pilot and witness statement it is likely that the glider stalled while landing. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot’s failure to maintain control of the glider while landing. Contributing to the accident was the unclear communications between the student pilot and instructor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA219
- Event ID
- 20240612194449
- Case number
- CEN24LA219
- 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: 40a6ca3daec9625105d7b22f675f206867086c6f9a4f239b65a4f78afde75f73; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:53:02.489Z.