Mahalo Air Flight 204
ATR ATR 42-300 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Lihue Airport (LIH) to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA090
- 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
ATR ATR 42-300
- Aircraft type
- ATR 42
- 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
- N4202G
- Operator
- Mahalo Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lihue Airport (LIH), Lihue, HITo Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
- 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 · descent
- 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 › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to statements from the captain and the injured flight attendant, the captain was anticipating moderate turbulence for the flight due to frontal system activity over the Hawaiian Islands. The captain briefed the flight attendant on the expected turbulence for the entire flight and kept the seatbelt sign illuminated continuously. Turbulence was encountered for the majority of the flight. Radar vectors were provided for an LDA Runway 26L approach to Honolulu. Also, a descent was made to 7,000 feet with the aircraft heading toward the only clear area between cells shown on both the aircraft and approach control radars. No turbulence had been encountered for several minutes, and the flight attendant elected to do a passenger/seat belt compliance check. The captain said three strong 'jolts' were encountered, accompanied by altitude excursions. The turbulence was encountered as the attendant was returning to her seat in the rear of the aircraft. The flight attendant was bounced off the ceiling twice and sustained a displaced fracture of her left ankle.
Probable cause
the flight attendant's decision to leave her seat in an area of forecast and known moderate turbulence. The turbulence was a related factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA090
- Event ID
- 20001207X05039
- Case number
- LAX96LA090
- 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: c87c2fe0669f52776a45e019a251198b6f2a16f701c5b129004ee195c9305666; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:54:57.556Z.