NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ERA21LA115
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
An encounter with severe turbulence, which resulted in serious injury to an unseated passenger.
Factual narrative
According to the operator, the airplane was cruising at flight level 250, about 1 hour and 40 minutes into the flight, when it encountered 30 to 45 seconds of severe turbulence. One of the three passengers was not seated and sustained serious injuries. The injured passenger reported that she struck her head on the overhead ceiling compartment, then fell onto the armrest. Another passenger assisted her to her seat, but the injured passenger had difficulty fastening her seatbelt. According to the operator, the crew reported the turbulence to air traffic control, advised the controller of the injury, and continued to the destination airport at the request of the passengers. At the destination airport, the passenger was met by emergency medical services personnel and declined additional medical treatment. The passenger reported that she sought medical treatment the following week and had a fractured rib. The pilot recorded the passenger’s seatbelt in the aircraft maintenance logbook. Mechanics performed a functional check of the seatbelt and found it to be operational, and the airplane was returned to service. 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 operation
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2021_ERA21LA115.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (turbulence, maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NTSB Aircraft Accident Reports 2021 · Accident report
Crash of Atlas Air Flight 3591, Boeing 767-300 (N1217A)
Atlas Air 3591 crashed into Trinity Bay, Texas, February 23, 2019. Investigation of the in-flight loss-of-control crash of Atlas Air 3591 into Trinity Bay, Texas.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Deep stall characteristics of MU-300
The deep stall characteristics of the MU-300 Diamond aircraft are described. The MU-300 obtained type certification from the FAA in 1981, and from Canada, West Germany, and England in 1983.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Technical Memorandum (TM)
Reporter Concerns in 300 Mode-Related Incident Reports from NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System
A model has been developed which represents prominent reporter concerns expressed in the narratives of 300 mode-related incident reports from NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS).
- NASA NTRS 2014 · Presentation
300 FT Runway Visual Range (RVR) Experiment Review
- 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.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2026 · Journal article (IJAAA)
From Reactive to Predictive: A hybrid Trust-Mediated Adoption Framework for Data-Driven Maintenance in Distributed-Authority Aviation Environments
Modern aviation maintenance operates within increasingly data-intensive technological environments, yet the operational integration of predictive maintenance into routine decision-making remains incon…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗