Air Wisconsin Airlines Bombardier Inc CL-600-2B19 accident
Bombardier Inc CL-600-2B19 · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) to Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA12CA059
- 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
Bombardier Inc CL-600-2B19
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier 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
- N453AW
- Operator
- Air Wisconsin Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE), Cleveland, OHTo 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
On March 3, 2012, about 1720 eastern standard time, Air Wisconsin 3733, a Bombardier CL-600-2B19, N453AW, experienced turbulence during descent into Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Of the 50 passengers and crew onboard the airplane, one flight attendant received serious injuries and the airplane was not damaged. The flight was operating under 14 CFR Part 121 as a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE), Cleveland, Ohio to PHL.
According to the flight crew, as the airplane was descending through about 17,000 feet, the flight initially experienced light turbulence so the flight crew turned on the seatbelt sign. Shortly after, the airplane experienced severe clear air turbulence that caused the airplane to drop at least 300 feet. At the time of the turbulence, the flight attendant (FA) was in the galley securing the beverage cart and was thrown to the ceiling and onto the floor injuring her back. The FA was assisted into her jumpseat by a passenger. The flight crew declared an emergency with ATC and requested emergency personnel meet the airplane at the gate. After landing, the FA was transported to the hospital and diagnosed with a fracture of her L-1 vertebrae.
Probable cause
an inadvertent encounter with clear air turbulence during descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA12CA059
- Event ID
- 20120410X01241
- Case number
- DCA12CA059
- 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: 58cfe18528ca485cb5fc31c67fca25418d3c31692ff24675f5cca32707cf9b31; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:43:02.740Z.