JetBlue Airways Flight 133
Airbus A320-232 · Accident: turbulence encounter on approach
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA396
- 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 A320-232
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A320
- 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
- N606JB
- Operator
- JetBlue Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), New York, NYTo Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW), Fort Myers, FL
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Turbulence encounter
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane was descending through 12,500 feet on approach to the airport. The airplane was jolted as it flew through a small cumulus cloud. Specifically, the airplane dropped about 20 feet instantaneously, experiencing a positive g-load of 1.98, followed by a negative g-load of -0.43, less than 1 second later. During that time, a seated passenger did not have her seatbelt fastened. She fell forward into the stowed tray table in front of her, fracturing two ribs. A second passenger was in an aft lavatory and suffered two spinal fractures. The captain had made a passenger announcement during initial descent and prior to the turbulence encounter, emphasizing the need for passengers to take their seats and fasten their seatbelts when the seatbelt sign was illuminated. Additionally, a flight attendant made a public announcement when the seatbelt sign was illuminated. The seatbelt sign had been illuminated since 19,000 feet (about 4 minutes prior) and the airplane was not flying through any precipitation. The captain had also instructed the flight attendants via intercom to sit down a few minutes prior to the turbulence encounter.
Probable cause
An inadvertent in-flight encounter with turbulence during approach. Contributing to the accident was the passengers' failure to follow the instructions of the illuminated seatbelt sign.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA396
- Event ID
- 20090712X94532
- Case number
- ERA09LA396
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 7eefcb129e8a8960f9843add5d668569928333e04ccbc4afdc98ffedce234795; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:48:46.351Z.