United Airlines Douglas DC-8-61 incident
Douglas DC-8-61 · Incident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Denver International Airport (DEN)
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
- DEN82IA098
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Douglas DC-8-61
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-8
- 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
- N8088U
- Operator
- United Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, CO
- 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
- Weather condition › Downdraft
- Weather condition › Turbulence, clear air
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THIS AIRCRAFT ENCOUNTERED UNFORECAST SEVERE CLEAR AIR TURBULANCE (CAT) WHILE IN CRUISE FLIGHT AT FL350 NEAR GOSHEN, IN. AS A RESULT OF THE ENCOUNTER, THE AIRCRAFT ENTERED AN UNCONTROLLED DESCENT WHICH WAS ARRESTED AT 31,500 FEET. A TOTAL OF SEVENTEEN PASSENGERS AND FIVE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS RECEIVED MINOR INJURIES. THE AIRCRAFT WAS INSPECTED AND FOUND AIRWORTHY. THE ONLY WARNING THAT THE CREW HAD AS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF CAT WAS A PIREP, PASSED ON BY THE CENTER CONTROLLER, THAT REPORTED MODERATE OR LESS TURBULANCE IN THE AREA. AFTER THE ENCOUNTER THE FLIGHT CONTINUED UNEVENTFULLY TO DENVER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN82IA098
- Event ID
- 20020917X03237
- Case number
- DEN82IA098
- 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: ca761d07db050bef2c674aa961f7d21bf0310e128af0ebd554065492157cc6a8; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:09:41.509Z.