Southwest Airlines Flight 1490
Boeing 737-2H4 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE)
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW94LA229
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Boeing 737-2H4
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N60SW
- Operator
- Southwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW), Chicago, ILTo Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE), Cleveland, OH
- 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 · climb to 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Weather condition › Turbulence in clouds
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of South Bend, IN, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
A FLIGHT ATTENDANT WORKING IN THE AFT GALLEY FELL TO THE FLOOR SERIOUSLY INJURING HER BACK WHEN THE AIRCRAFT ENCOUNTERED TURBULENCE. ACCORDING TO THE FLIGHT CREW, RADAR WAS USED TO AVOID WEATHER AS THE AIRCRAFT APPROACHED SOUTH BEND, INDIANA. THERE HAD BEEN NO PILOT REPORTS OF TURBULENCE, AND THE COMPANY DISPATCHER WEATHER PACKAGE DID NOT REPORT TURBULENCE. AS THE FLIGHT CLIMBED THROUGH FL200, MODERATE TURBULENCE WAS ENCOUNTERED FOR SEVERAL SECONDS. THE AIRCRAFT THEN ENTERED VISUAL METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS AND SMOOTH AIR. THE CAPTAIN STATED THAT THE UNEXPECTED TURBULENCE STARTED AND STOPPED SO QUICKLY THAT HE DID NOT HAVE TIME TO WARN THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS. THE SEAT BELT SIGN WAS ILLUMINATED AT THE TIME THE TURBULENCE WAS ENCOUNTERED.
Probable cause
THE ENCOUNTER WITH UNFORCASTED AND UNREPORTED TURBULENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW94LA229
- Event ID
- 20001206X01744
- Case number
- FTW94LA229
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 09928d70d4d406af44e8de9377349b55469f4016efd5367f07815d5699eeb5bf; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:13:22.977Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N60SW; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.