Vanguard Airlines Flight 432
Boeing 737-222 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP) to Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI99LA145
- 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 737-222
- 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
- N208AU
- Operator
- Vanguard Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MNTo Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW), IL
- 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 › Instructions, written/verbal, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Flight 432 encountered about 30 seconds of moderate turbulence while deviating around weather cells during a descent from 17,000 feet mean sea level (msl). The seat belt sign was on and the flight attendants were instructed to be seated prior to the encounter. The 'A' flight attendant in the front of the airplane was able to get to her jumpseat. The 'B' and 'C' flight attendants in the back of the airplane were not seated and both were thrown to the ceiling during the encounter. The 'B' flight attendant suffered a cut and bruises. The 'C' flight attendant who landed on the floor suffered a broken pelvis.
Probable cause
the flight attendants did not follow the cockpit crews instructions to be seated because of expected turbulence. A factor associated with the accident was the turbulence encountered.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI99LA145
- Event ID
- 20001212X18718
- Case number
- CHI99LA145
- 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: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-05-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 24ea6bb300530699da07e770e32d6b8ffd343c2832f914082c5986f65fc7db33; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:56:49.714Z.