America West Airlines Flight 5
Airbus Industrie A-320-232 · Accident en route
From Tampa International Airport (TPA) to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX99LA087
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Airbus Industrie A-320-232
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A-320
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N640AW
- Operator
- America West Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, FLTo Harry Reid International Airport (LAS)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Passenger › Procedures/directives, not complied with
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Las Vegas, NV, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to the statements of the three cabin attendants and the flight crew, the aircraft had been in light to moderate turbulence for most of the flight. The seat belt sign was illuminated and several public address system announcements had been made for the passengers to remain seated with their seat belts fastened. The flight and cabin crewmembers reported that at the time of the incident the turbulence had abated and the ride was smooth; however, the seat belt sign remained illuminated. A 70-year-old male passenger in seat 23C got up and began walking toward the aft lavatory. One cabin attendant told the passenger to return to his seat unless it was an absolute necessity to visit the lavatory. The passenger, who has two artificial legs, declined to follow the cabin attendant's instruction and continued to the aft galley area where he fell, fracturing his hip. The crew obtained medical advice by radio from Med Link, and, after consultation with a physician, the aircraft continued to its destination.
Probable cause
The injured passenger's failure to follow the instructions of the cabin attendants.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX99LA087
- Event ID
- 20001205X00183
- Case number
- LAX99LA087
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c7a1c8f9b1f8ecef447fe56b33720913f6a63e8d205b35862607d981699f65f9; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:00:05.100Z.