Let SUPER BLANIK L-23 N8022

Summary

On 27 June 2007 at about 20:30 local time, a Let SUPER BLANIK L-23 registered N8022 was involved in an accident near Warren, Vermont, United States. 2 people were on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

27 June 2007 at 20:30

Classification

Accident

Location

Warren, Vermont, United States

Nearest airport

Warren-Sugarbush (037)

Coordinates

44.1167, -72.8267

Aircraft

Let SUPER BLANIK L-23

Registration

N8022

Category

Glider

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Instructional

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Warren → Unknown

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

NYC07CA151

Nobody was injured.

The glider's inadvertent encounter with windshear. A factor was the outflow from a nearby thunderstorm.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The LET Super Blanik L23 flight instructor and a student pilot were towed to 2,700 feet above the airport, where the student pilot performed a series of maneuvers. Afterwards, the student pilot descended the glider toward a midfield downwind entry, about 1,500 feet above the airport. While descending, turbulence from an approaching rain shower increased, so the flight instructor took the controls. The flight instructor flew the remainder of the downwind leg, followed by a base leg, at 70 knots with full spoilers deployed since the glider would not descend. Turning onto final, while heading into the wind, the glider experienced an "extremely strong" sink rate, from which, the flight instructor could not recover. The glider subsequently landed hard about 100 feet short of the runway causing substantial damage. Shortly after the landing, light rain fell on the airport, and there was thunder in the distance. Ten minutes later, there was lightning 2 miles southeast of the airport, and the winds dropped and remained at less than 10 knots the rest of the afternoon. The flight instructor reported over 9,600 hours of flight time with 3,700 hours as a pilot in command of gliders.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.