ERA24FA362 · Schleicher Alexander Gmbh & Co ASH 26 E
Schleicher Alexander Gmbh & Co ASH 26 E · Accident: loss of control in flight during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24FA362
- 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
- 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
Schleicher Alexander Gmbh & Co ASH 26 E
- Aircraft type
- Schleicher Alexander ASH-26
- 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
- N264JM
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 2000)
- 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
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 84-year-old pilot was being towed for takeoff in his glider when the accident occurred. According to the tow pilot, the glider became airborne earlier than normal and climbed above and to the left of the tow plane. The glider started pulling the tail of the tow plane up and the tow pilot had to release the glider when they were about 100 to 150 ft above the ground. Witnesses described that the glider pitched up before entering a nose low, left descending turn that continue to ground impact on the grass runway. Postaccident examination of the glider revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The witnesses also stated that the pilot acted and sounded normal before the accident; however, once airborne, his actions were not consistent with his normal flying habits. The witnesses described him as an active glider pilot who was meticulous and very conservative with his flying. Postaccident toxicological testing of blood and liver samples from the pilot detected the drugs Metformin and Pravastatin. These medications are not considered impairing and likely did not pose a hazard to flight or contribute to the accident. An autopsy of the pilot did not detect that he had a medical event that would have contributed to the accident. Since no mechanical or medical issues were identified, the investigation was not able to determine why the pilot lost control on takeoff.
Probable cause
A loss of control on takeoff for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24FA362
- Event ID
- 20240830195026
- Case number
- ERA24FA362
- 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: de4120635d5e2b5c7be6738e38885416272641072bc80f99bacb6d405ea09385; retrieved 2026-09-15T08:57:10.518Z.