Flight 236 · Boeing 737
Boeing 737 · Accident: uncontrolled altitude deviation en route
From Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX) to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA122
- 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 737
- 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
- N16703
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX), Mexico CityTo Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
- 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
- Uncontrolled altitude deviation
- 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
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Newark, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
While descending through 10,000 feet mean sea level, and traveling in and out of cumulus clouds, the airplane encountered 'lite' turbulence. With the fasten seatbelt sign on, the airplane experienced an 'abrupt' vertical jolt. 'Shortly after', a flight attendant called from the aft galley, and advised the flight crew that a flight attendant was injured during the encounter. A doctor onboard the flight advised the crew that the flight attendant 'probably' broke his ankle. The flight attendant was placed in a passenger seat, and ice was applied to the injury. The captain instructed a dead heading flight attendant to assume the injured flight attendants duties, and requested priority from approach control because of a medical emergency. After landing, the injured flight attendant was removed, and transported to a local hospital for x-rays. Examination of the flight attendant right leg revealed two fractures, one on his tibia and one on his fibula.
Probable cause
In flight encounter with turbulence which caused a flight attendant to fall and break two bones in his right leg.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA122
- Event ID
- 20001212X18874
- Case number
- NYC99LA122
- 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: e08118b14a581b87d93b96d4fd6c3d0becc18c17ed68244c54427b123dd0806e; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:56:35.891Z.