- Date
- April 26, 1992, 14:00 local (21:00 UTC)
- Place
- Bishop, CA
- Injuries
- 1 uninjured
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Phase of flight
- Enroute
- Aircraft
- N97DTLaister Nugget
- Weather
- Visual (VMC) · Day
- Status
- Completed · report July 26, 1993
- Report
- Approved by Office Director
- FAA report
- 19920426011679A
- Case key
- 27609
From the NTSB’s public API. By law, NTSB reports can’t be used as evidence in lawsuits over the accident.
On this page
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command's improperly planned no-flap landing approach; failure to follow the checklist; and inadvertent gear retraction. Factors contributing to the accident were the buckling of the wing skin, cracking of the fuselage and the inoperative flaps.
Sequence of events
NTSB’s coding before 2008: each occurrence and phase of flight, and the causes and factors under it. The codes are defined in NTSB’s coding manual.
Analysis
The pilot of the glider encountered extreme turbulence during cruise flight. The turbulence buckled the wings, cracked the fuselage, extended the landing gear and rendered the flaps inoperative. The pilot failed to properly plan the no-flap landing approach and inadvertently retracted the landing gear. The glider overshot the point of intended landing and slid into a ravine off the departure end of the runway.
Aircraft
- Registration
- N97DT
- Reported as
- Laister Nugget
- Category
- Glider
- Serial number
- N-14
- Airframe hours
- 353
- Engine
- unknown
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Flight
- Personal · Part 91
- Operator
- Reilly, John D.
- Registered owner
- Reilly, John D.
- Airworthiness certificate
- Special, Experimental (Special)
- Last inspection
- Annual · December 12, 1991
- Departed
- BIH
- Airport
- BIH · Bishop, runway 16, 5,600 × 100 ft, asphalt
Matched to the registry by N-number and the event date; the registry’s history has gaps, so older matches can be wrong. Compare the reported make and model.
Flight crew
As NTSB recorded them. NTSB leaves out names.
- Role
- Pilot
- Age
- 41
- Certificate
- Private
- Flight hours
- 800 total · 8 in this make and model · 800 as pilot in command · 7 in the last 90 days · 7 in the last 30 days · 1 in the last 24 hours
Weather
- Conditions
- Visual (VMC) · Day
- Visibility
- 50 statute miles
- Lowest ceiling
- None
FAA reports on this event · 1
The FAA’s own accident and incident reports, matched to the aircraft by N-number and date.