NTSB CAROL · Event
Event LAX86LA105
Aircraft involved
Factual narrative
ON FEBRUARY 1, 1986 AT ABOUT 1045 PST A GROB 103 GLIDER, N103BK, GROUND LOOPED IN MUD FOLLOWING AN ABORTED TAKEOFF AT SKY SAILING AIRPORT, FREEMONT CALIFORNIA. THE PILOT ELECTED TO ABORT THE TAKEOFF BECAUSE IT APPEARED THE TOW AIRCRAFT WAS NOT CLIMBING NORMALLY. THE TOW OPERATION WAS CONDUCTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH STANDARD PROCEDURES WHICH DO NOT REQUIRE THE GLIDER PILOT TO COORDINATE WITH THE TOW AIRCRAFT PILOT PRIOR TO THE FLIGHT. AFTER THE GLIDER RELEASED, IT DROPPED 18 INCHES TO THE GROUND, VEERED TO THE RIGHT AND COLLIDED WITH A DITCH. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1986_LAX86LA105.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.
Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type. Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗