Flight 9 · Boeing 767-222
Boeing 767-222 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI95LA188
- 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
Boeing 767-222
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 767
- 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
- N606UA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), NEW YORK, NYTo San Francisco International Airport (SFO), San Francisco, CA
- 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
- 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
- Flight attendant › Seat belt, not used
- Passenger › Seat belt, not used
- Weather condition › Turbulence
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While vectoring between two thunderstorm cells in IMC, the airplane momentarily entered into VMC, and the flightcrew saw a cumulus nimbus buildup directly ahead of their path. The captain stated that this buildup had not been displayed on their radar and the cell was too close to avoid. The captain immediately made an announcement for the flight attendants, who were in the process of serving the cabin, to be seated. He stated that there was not enough time for the flight attendants to react before the airplane penetrated the top of the buildup. The flight experienced ten seconds of severe turbulence and lost approximately 900 feet in altitude. Three of the nine flight attendants were seriously injured. One passenger, who was seated but had not had her seat belt fastened, was also seriously injured. The seat belt sign had been on for approximately eight to ten minutes prior to cell penetration.
Probable cause
an in-flight encounter with turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI95LA188
- Event ID
- 20001207X03670
- Case number
- CHI95LA188
- 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: f2a178c3e0ece74ff92b279ed5db46f75a8db3bcd8c47d792d6c38517ca55d0e; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:00:08.124Z.