Horizon Air Industries Flight 2441
Bombardier DHC-8-402 · Accident: turbulence encounter on approach
From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA) to Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR13LA431
- 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 DHC-8-402
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier 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
- N449QX
- Operator
- Horizon Air Industries
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Seattle, WATo Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NV
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2012)
- 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
During the descent with known moderate-to-severe turbulence, the flight crew notified the cabin crew, which consisted of a forward and an aft flight attendant, to expect turbulent conditions, finish the cabin service, and be seated. As the airplane was leveling out, it encountered the first of a series of turbulent jolts of severe turbulence. The aft flight attendant had finished making a public announcement and was buckling herself into a jumpseat when the first jolt of severe turbulence hit. She was knocked out of the jumpseat onto the floor. The airplane encountered a second jolt of severe turbulence before she was able to get into her seat, and she was thrown to the ceiling and then back down to the floor, which resulted in a serious injury. The forward flight attendant had been checking on a passenger when the turbulence occurred and was thrown to the ceiling and hit the overhead bin. The passenger she was checking on flew out of his seat because he had not fastened his seatbelt, and he landed on the armrest of another seat.
Probable cause
The airplane’s encounter with known moderate-to-severe turbulence, which resulted in a serious injury to a flight attendant.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR13LA431
- Event ID
- 20130930X75500
- Case number
- WPR13LA431
- 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: 2d87bb29c0834123ac3e187d3251f22a66a27dd89e51494442d3b9ad12d0a56d; retrieved 2026-09-15T22:55:56.555Z.