Delta Connection Canadair CL-600-2B19 incident
Canadair CL-600-2B19 · Incident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC03IA027
- 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
- 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
Canadair CL-600-2B19
- Aircraft type
- Canadair CL-600
- 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
- N868CA
- Operator
- Delta Connection
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Atlanta, GATo Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Washington, DC
- 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
- Weather condition › Turbulence, clear air
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
About 3 hours before takeoff, the dispatcher approved the flight release, which contained SIGMET Whiskey 8 for occasional severe turbulence from 14,000 feet to FL 280, and then went off duty. The turbulence box overlaid the departure airport and planned en route climb to altitude; however, the top of descent (TOD) and destination airport were clear of the turbulence. When the pilot printed the flight release, SIGMET Whiskey 8, had been replaced with SIGMET Whiskey 9. The turbulence box had moved east of the departure airport, and the TOD and destination airport remained clear of the turbulence box. The flight release also contained a single pilot report of severe turbulence from a Boeing 737 at FL 240, within the defined area of turbulence. Prior to departure, but after the flight release was signed by the pilot, the flight release was updated again, this time with SIGMET Whiskey 10. The turbulence box moved further east to cover the TOD and destination airport. Nearing his destination, the pilot was descended into the turbulence box defined by both SIGMET Whiskey 9 and Whiskey 10. These turbulences boxes ranged from Ottawa, Canada, to Florida, to Cleveland, Ohio. The pilot had turned on the seat belt sign, asked the flight attendant to be seated, and had already made an announcement for the passengers to remain seated as they were within 30 minutes of the destination airport. While descending through 17,800 feet, the flight encountered severe turbulence. The airplane was not equipped with ACARS. Flight crews were required to monitor dispatch frequency for updates, and encouraged to get weather updates en route. Weather updates were accomplished by direct radio contact between the dispatcher and pilots, or by the pilots accessing FAA facilities while en route. Although the operator had about 100 flights operating in the turbulence box, none were cancelled due to forecast turbulence, or reported to have encountered severe turbulence.
Probable cause
The PIC's inadvertent encounter with turbulence while operating in an area of forecast occasional severe turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC03IA027
- Event ID
- 20021209X05575
- Case number
- NYC03IA027
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 60e736dc50439ff3cba11cc2a2b72daf657fdcc991bd8c331421e61dbf15a061; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:57:02.361Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N868CA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.