The pilot was approaching to land after a soaring flight of about 90 minutes. When about 300 metres short of the threshold he realised that the aircraft was undershooting and he was conscious of a loss of airspeed. He closed the airbrakes and lowered the nose but said that he got very little response. He then pushed the nose down further to try to regain speed. By this stage he was very close to the airfield boundary. The left wing clipped a fence and the aircraft struck the ground and skidded to a halt. The wind at the time of the accident was reported as a 15 knot northerly with occasional gusts to 20 knots. There was some evidence of wind shear on final approach. The investigation established that two days prior to the accident the pilot carried out a check flight with an instructor in an IS28B glider. Prior to that flight he had only made two sailplane flights in the previous 10 months both being under the supervision of an instructor. Between the check flight and the accident flight the pilot made two local soaring flights each of about 90 minutes duration. Of his 915 hours total flying experience 70 were in gliders. This accident was not the subject of an on-scene investigation and the circumstances described above are based on the pilot's report.
