Skip to content

Atlas / NTSB / DCA22LA012

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event DCA22LA012

2021-10-08 Lexington, Virginia, United States Serious 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N8642E

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

BOEING 737-8H4

Year of manufacture

2014 · 7 years old at event

TCDS

A16WE · THE BOEING CO

Engine

CFM INTL CFM56-7B27E

Seats / Engines

143 seats · 2 engines

Last airworthiness date

20140731

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S ABE056

Registrant of record

TVPX AIRCRAFT SOLUTIONS INC TRUSTEE

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The airplane’s inadvertent encounter with convective turbulence.

Factual narrative

The airplane was in cruise flight when it encountered convective turbulence at flight level (FL) 320. Weather conditions were dark moonless night with scattered storms visible on radar, but the crew reported no returns along their path. A Convective SIGMET was in effect for the area which forecast cloud tops to FL320. The cabin crew was conducting drink service. The flight crew stated they unexpectedly entered a cloud and experienced moderate to borderline severe turbulence. The C flight attendant fell and broke her 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).

  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Turbulence-Convective turbulence-Effect on personnel
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Turbulence-Convective turbulence-Effect on operation
  • Environmental issues-Conditions/weather/phenomena-Turbulence-Convective turbulence-Awareness of condition

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2021_DCA22LA012.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). 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 ↗