Shuttle America Embraer ERJ 170 100 SE accident
Embraer ERJ 170 100 SE · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From President Donald J. Trump International Airport (KPBI) to Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA16CA041
- 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
Embraer ERJ 170 100 SE
- Aircraft type
- Embraer ERJ-170
- 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
- N643RW
- Operator
- Shuttle America
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From President Donald J. Trump International Airport (KPBI), Palm Beach, FLTo Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR), Newark, NJ
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2005)
- 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
According to crew statements, the flight crew briefed the flight attendants (FA) that turbulence was forecast for the flight and that they would keep them updated throughout. During the first portion of the flight, the flight encountered light turbulence and occasional moderate turbulence several times and the flight crew made public address (PA) announcements each time. Later, the flight encountered unexpected turbulence and the flight crew immediately turned on the fasten seatbelt sign and made a PA announcement. During that time, a FA was stowing a beverage cart in the aft galley, and the turbulence caused the cart to bump the FAs hand. The FA continued to perform her duties and the flight landed uneventfully.
The next day, the FAs hand was painful and swollen and she was diagnosed with a broken wrist.
Probable cause
an encounter with turbulence resulting in a serious injury to a flight attendant.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA16CA041
- Event ID
- 20160106X80332
- Case number
- DCA16CA041
- 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: 9f9b335612e87a391f564fc2239a5aff0e43d03694396657b293ec20e2fb02cc; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:04:37.526Z.