JetBlue Flight 1561
Airbus A321 231 · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Grantley Adams International Airport (BGI)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA16CA205
- 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
Airbus A321 231
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A321
- 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
- N913JB
- Operator
- JetBlue
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), New York, NYTo Grantley Adams International Airport (BGI), Seawell, Christ Church
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2013)
- 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
- 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
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
On July 28, 2016, at 0111 eastern daylight time, JetBlue Airways as flight 1561, an Airbus A321, N913JB, experienced turbulence during cruise that resulted in one flight attendant sustaining a serious injury. There were no injuries to the other passengers and crew aboard and the airplane was not damaged. The flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a regularly scheduled passenger flight from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Queens, New York to Grantley Adams International Airport (BGI), Christchurch, Barbados. The flight diverted to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU), San Juan, Puerto Rico .
According to the operator, aircraft encountered turbulence during cruise while the flight attendant (FA) at position #4 was carrying a pot of hot water from the aft galley towards one of the aft lavatories. The FA stated that she held on to the galley counter with her right hand and swung the coffee pot in her left towards the jumpseat away from another flight attendant. She stated that the aircraft experienced another sudden drop and the water in the pot flew up in the air and landed on her left shoulder and left side resulting in second-degree burns.
The flight crew indicated that at the time of the event the weather conditions were mostly clear, but had encountered short segments of instrument weather conditions as forecasted with no associated turbulence or precipitation. They indicated that they had been actively using the onboard weather radar, but there were no returns that led to deviations. The first officer stated that the turbulence was sudden, with no other associated rain or precipitation and then immediately calm again, so no actions were taken.
The operator indicated that the flight data from the Quick Access Recorder (QAR) showed smooth conditions prior to the turbulence encounter.
Probable cause
an inadvertent encounter with clear air turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA16CA205
- Event ID
- 20160803X71952
- Case number
- DCA16CA205
- 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: dc4bba20b5df6719a9b50ecb6cdf63c53344a474f181bec42af6ef3761f32af8; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:46:08.498Z.