Northwest Airlines Flight 1515
Airbus Industrie A319-114 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (KMSP) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (KRNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX02LA138
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Airbus Industrie A319-114
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A319
- 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
- N325NB
- Operator
- Northwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (KMSP), Minneapolis, MNTo Reno Tahoe International Airport (KRNO), Reno, NV
- 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
- Approach
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not complied with
- Miscellaneous eqpt/furnishings, galley › Not secured
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane encountered moderate turbulence while descending for the approach into the airport and one flight attendant sustained serious injuries. The captain briefed the lead flight attendant on the expected turbulence encounter and asked that the cabin be secured early with everyone, including the flight attendants, in their seats and secured. A prearranged chime signal would notify the lead flight attendant that everyone should be in their seats. After the chime signal, everyone was seated and secured; however, a flight attendant seated in the rear of the airplane noticed that a galley upper door compartment had come open. This compartment was in line with both her head and another attendant's head, and she was concerned about objects coming out of the compartment during landing and injuring either one of them. She unfastened her restraints, got up, and secured the door. As she was returning to her seat, the airplane encountered a severe jolt, which violently slammed her into the ceiling, then the floor.
Probable cause
The failure of an undetermined cabin crewmember to securely close an aft galley compartment door, which necessitated the injured crewmember leaving her seat to secure the compartment door.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX02LA138
- Event ID
- 20020419X00545
- Case number
- LAX02LA138
- 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, coordinates, 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: e23a8f94d3b537b735e13e58242b0364f693ff00db6c6151a0218b26ea954c13; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:03:43.084Z.