NTSB CAROL · Event
Event DCA16CA077
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
an inadvertent encounter with clear air turbulence.
Factual narrative
On January 15, 2016 at 6:15 pm eastern standard time, Southwest Airlines flight 1528, a Boeing 737-700, N718SW, encountered turbulence in the vicinity of Titusville, Florida during initial descent to Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport (FLL), Fort Lauderdale, Florida . Of the 144 passengers and crew members onboard, one flight attendant was seriously injured and the airplane was not damaged. The airplane was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121as a regularly scheduled passenger flight from T. F. Green Airport (PVD), Providence, Rhode Island. According to the operator, the flights routing passed east of Jacksonville, Florida over the Atlantic to the east of the Florida peninsula. A frontal system and jet stream stretched to the west and northwest of the flight's routing with turbulence forecast and reported on the western portions of the peninsula. The flight crew reported that they were in cruise at FL380 in smooth air but were aware of potential turbulence throughout the flight. Upon initial descent, the captain illuminated the fasten seat belt sign and advised the passengers to remain seated. While descending through approximately FL320, the airplane encountered turbulence in clear air lasting approximately 3 seconds. At the time of the turbulence encounter, two flight attendants (FA) were securing the aft galley for landing when one fell to the floor injuring her ankle. Medically trained passengers assisted the injured FA who could not complete her duties. The flight crew advised the FLL station of the event and requested medical assistance upon landing. The airplane landed at FLL with no further incident. The flight attendant was transported to the hospital where she was diagnosed with a broken ankle. 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).
- C Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Turbulence-Clear air turbulence-Effect on personnel - C
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2016_DCA16CA077.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 or causal vocabulary (turbulence). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- arXiv 2026 · arXiv preprint
Direct Numerical Simulations of Ice-Ocean Boundary Turbulence
Turbulent heat and freshwater transport at ice-ocean interfaces controls glacier and iceberg melt rates, yet the underlying physics remains poorly constrained.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER)
Political Turbulence and Aviation Safety: A Cross-National Analysis of Political Stability's Effects on Aviation Accidents
To what extent does political stability affect aviation safety? This research aims to link domestic political conditions and public safety through the consideration of aviation accident frequency.
- arXiv 2025 · arXiv preprint
Explainable LiDAR 3D Point Cloud Segmentation and Clustering for Detecting Airplane-Generated Wind Turbulence
Wake vortices - strong, coherent air turbulences created by aircraft - pose a significant risk to aviation safety and therefore require accurate and reliable detection methods.
- arXiv 2024 · arXiv preprint
Does small-scale turbulence matter for ice growth in mixed-phase clouds?
Representing the glaciation of mixed-phase clouds in terms of the Wegener-Bergeron-Findeisen process is a challenge for many weather and climate models, which tend to overestimate this process because…
- arXiv 2023 · arXiv preprint
Effects of electrostatic interaction on clustering and collision of bidispersed inertial particles in homogeneous and isotropic turbulence
In sandstorms and thunderclouds, turbulence-induced collisions between solid particles and ice crystals lead to inevitable triboelectrification.
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2023 · SKYbrary article
Wake Vortex Turbulence — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary wake vortex turbulence comprehensive article — generation mechanics, dissipation factors, separation standards (ICAO LIGHT/MEDIUM/HEAVY/SUPER + recategorisation RECAT-EU).
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗