Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / CEN22LA166

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event CEN22LA166

2022-03-29 Odessa, Texas, United States Airport · ODO Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N469SL

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BEECH B200

Year of manufacture

1982 · 40 years old at event

Engine

U/A CANADA PT6A SERIES (715 hp)

Seats / Engines

11 seats · 2 engines

Last airworthiness date

19820303

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A5BCA5

Registrant of record

ANGELY AIR LLC

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The airplane’s encounter with severe clear air turbulence that was not forecasted, which resulted in a serious injury to an unrestrained passenger.

Factual narrative

The pilot reported that while descending at about 160 kts during an instrument approach in visual meteorological conditions with the autopilot engaged, and passing through 5,000 ft msl, the airplane encountered “a sudden pocket” of severe clear air turbulence for one second, resulting in the loss of about 300 ft of altitude. A passenger in the cabin, who was in the process of restraining himself when the turbulence encounter occurred, hit his head on the cabin ceiling and sustained a serious injury. The autopilot was turned off, the pilot continued with the approach, and the airplane landed at the destination airport without further incident. The airplane did not sustain any damage from the turbulence encounter. The pilot reported there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot reported that at the time of the accident, an AIRMET for moderate turbulence below 12,000 ft msl and high surface winds was active for the area. The passengers were verbally instructed by the pilot to make sure their restraint systems were fastened. The pilot activated the cabin seatbelt sign as an aural and visual warning as reinforcement. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Turbulence-Clear air turbulence-Effect on personnel
  • Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Equipment/furnishings-Passenger compartment equip-Not used/operated
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Turbulence-Clear air turbulence-Contributed to outcome
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Turbulence-Clear air turbulence-Compliance w/ procedure
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Turbulence-Clear air turbulence-Awareness of condition
  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Use of equip/system-Passenger

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2022_CEN22LA166.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (turbulence, autopilot). 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 ↗