CEN26LA282 · PZL-Bielsko B1-PW-5
PZL-Bielsko B1-PW-5 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From FLF Gliderport (TX23) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA282
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
PZL-Bielsko B1-PW-5
- Aircraft type
- PZL Bielsko B1
- 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
- N105WS
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From FLF Gliderport (TX23), Briggs, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 2002)
- 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
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On August 6, 2026, about 1538 central daylight time, a PZL-Bielsko B1-PW-5 glider, N105WS, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Briggs, Texas. The pilot was fatally injured. The glider was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The glider was departing on an auto-tow launch at the time of the accident. According to witness statements, the glider achieved level flight at about 1,000 ft before release from the towline. Following the release, the glider yawed to the right and entered a descending spiral, completing about 7 to 8 rotations before impacting terrain west of the glider port. Witnesses reported that the glider impacted the ground in a near-vertical attitude. The cockpit and forward fuselage were crushed aft during the impact. Both wings remained attached to the fuselage. The tail section and vertical stabilizer were partially separated, with the aft 4 ft of the tail boom folded over the aft fuselage. The glider was retained for further examination.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA282
- Event ID
- 20260810203557
- Case number
- CEN26LA282
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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. 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: be88c3935247b6b8b1063994a30aa25ba44eb8b9a9583a458b31fe48aca79ca4; retrieved 2026-09-15T09:19:38.538Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative describes an auto-tow launch at the glider port near Briggs, Texas, and TX23 is a Texas identifier; the 'TN' state is a typo.