Piedmont Airlines Flight 4260
Boeing OF Canada/Dehav DIV DHC-8-311 · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) to Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09LA444
- 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
Boeing OF Canada/Dehav DIV DHC-8-311
- Aircraft type
- Boeing Of Canada/dehav Div DHC-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
- N328EN
- Operator
- Piedmont Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), Charlotte, NCTo Coastal Carolina Regional Airport (EWN), New Bern, NC
- 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
- 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
After leveling off at 14,000 feet mean sea level the flightcrew allowed passenger beverage service to occur. Shortly thereafter the flightcrew noticed a layer of clouds ahead and asked air traffic control (ATC) if they could climb to stay above the clouds. The controller was unable to clear the airplane to climb due to traffic above. The captain informed the flight attendant (FA) who began beverage service to put the cart away and be seated due to anticipated turbulence. The flight entered a cloud layer and was then vectored by ATC 80 degrees to the right to a navigation fix. During the turn, the first officer noticed a small cell of precipitation directly ahead of their flight path. The first officer continued the turn 30 more degrees to avoid the cell but the flight encountered about 15 seconds of moderate turbulence. The beverage cart and the flight attendant became airborne, and when she landed she sustained compound fractures of her left tibia and fibula. She alerted the captain and two passengers assisted the injured FA by securing the beverage cart. The injured FA continued to make all required safety announcements. An emergency was declared with air traffic control and the flight proceeded to the destination and landed without further event. The FA was transported to a hospital for treatment. Postaccident operational testing of the weather radar system revealed it tested satisfactory.
Probable cause
An in-flight encounter with convective clouds resulting in moderate turbulence and serious injury to a flight attendant.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09LA444
- Event ID
- 20090806X21108
- Case number
- ERA09LA444
- 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: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2009-08-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 3c3ab5d1c93c013d3c08fdb9ffb194df98d6ff49df24d17fecba179bb354d783; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:45:40.002Z.