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US Airways Boeing 757-2B7 accident

16 Apr 2011 · Cheltenham, MD, United States

Boeing 757-2B7 · Accident: turbulence encounter en route

From Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)

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Event

NTSB case
ERA11CA247
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
Instrument Meteorological Cond

Boeing 757-2B7

Aircraft type
Boeing 757
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
N200UU
Operator
U.S. Airways
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, FLTo Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PA
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
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

According to the captain, the air carrier flight was descending out of flight level 240, when he asked the flight attendants to secure the cabin and take their seats because of anticipated turbulence. Approximately three minutes later, the airplane was at flight level 200 when it experienced moderate to severe turbulence for several seconds. According to the flight attendants, they were standing and completing the prelanding requirements at the time, when they were unable to maintain their balance. One of the flight attendants sustained a serious foot injury due to a fall, while the others were not injured. The airplane was not damaged and landed uneventfully at the destination airport.

Probable cause

The in-flight encounter with turbulence, resulting in an injury to a cabin attendant.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record ERA11CA247
Event ID
20110417X11718
Case number
ERA11CA247
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 2011-04-17.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: b851425c42562efac983fa85b057b482bf8b21efbe978abd2e0f2156ee345de5; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:04:13.507Z.