Southwest Airlines Flight 5895
Boeing 737 76N · Accident: turbulence encounter on approach
From Denver International Airport (KDEN) to San Diego International Airport (KSAN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA16CA052
- 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 737 76N
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N7733B
- Operator
- Southwest Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (KDEN), Denver, COTo San Diego International Airport (KSAN), San Diego, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 9 years (built 2006)
- 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
On December 26, 2015, at about 1238 pacific standard time, Southwest Airlines flight 5895, a Boeing 737-700, N7733B, encountered moderate turbulence while descending for approach to San Diego International Airport (KSAN), San Diego, California. Of the 148 passengers and crewmembers onboard, 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 Denver International Airport (KDEN), Denver, Colorado, to KSAN.
The flight crew stated that turbulence encounter occurred as the airplane was descending through about 14,000 feet and the seatbelt sign was illuminated. At the time of the turbulence encounter, the three flight attendants (FA) were standing in the aft galley preparing to secure the cabin. When the turbulence began, all three FAs attempted to brace themselves but one FA was unable to grab an assist handle by the galley when she thrown to the floor. She was unable to stand back up on her own and required assistance from the other FAs.
After landing, the injured FA was transported to a local hospital where she was diagnosed with a fractured ankle.
Probable cause
An inadvertent encounter with clear air turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA16CA052
- Event ID
- 20160119X15230
- Case number
- DCA16CA052
- 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: 27f68e33a282b2d2442cf71897743a78026591cb352c7a61446ba049cf4d66d5; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:05:43.831Z.