NTSB CAROL · Event
Event DCA18CA102
Registry · N817NW
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
AIRBUS A330-323
Year of manufacture
2007 · 11 years old at event
TCDS
A46NM · AIRBUS SAS
Engine
P & W PW4168A
Seats / Engines
379 seats · 2 engines
Last airworthiness date
20070607
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S AB249E
Registrant of record
DELTA AIR LINES INC
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
an inadvertent encounter with clear air turbulence.
Factual narrative
On February 24, 2018, at about 1258 central standard time, Delta Air Lines flight 2023, an Airbus A330-323, N817NW, encountered turbulence while descending enroute to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP), Minneapolis, Minnesota. Of the 298 passengers and crew onboard, one flight attendant sustained serious injuries and two flight attendants sustained minor injuries. The airplane was not damaged. The flight was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, Florida, to MSP. According to the flight crew, air traffic control indicated that there were no pilot reports of significant turbulence from preceding airplanes along their descent route. However, the flight encountered severe turbulence as it was descending through about flight level 200. The seatbelt sign was illuminated. When the turbulence was encountered, the flight attendants were beginning their cabin preparations for landing and the flight attendants were thrown to the floor. One flight attendant was thrown against the 4R door, striking her head and back. After landing, the injured flight attendant was transported to the hospital and diagnosed with a fractured vertebrae. 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_2018_DCA18CA102.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 ↗