Republic Airways Holdings Flight 3458
Embraer ERJ 170 100 SE · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (KIAH) to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (KCLE)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA16CA208
- 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
- N655RW
- Operator
- Republic Airways Holdings
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (KIAH), Houston, TXTo Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (KCLE), Cleveland, OH
- 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 · 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On July 26, 2016 at 5:00 pm eastern daylight time, Republic Airlines flight 3458, an Embraer 170, N655RW, encountered turbulence during descent at about 16,500 feet. Of the 53 passengers and crew members onboard, one flight attendant was seriously injured and the airplane was not damaged. The airplane was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a regularly scheduled passenger flight from George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, Texas, to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE), Cleveland, Ohio.
The flight crew reported that on initial check in with CLE approach control, the controller advised of moderate turbulence. The first officer was in the process of notifying the cabin when the aircraft encountered turbulence. The crew reported the duration of the turbulence was only a few seconds. One flight attendant working in the aft galley fell and broke her left tibia. A medical doctor on board assisted the flight attendant. The flight crew notified operations to have EMS meet the flight and the airplane landed with no further incident.
Probable cause
an inadvertent encounter with turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA16CA208
- Event ID
- 20160805X50153
- Case number
- DCA16CA208
- 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, coordinates, 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: 92e584d9ca89e7fe49e4eaad7241df05eb1e5b467238459578d3a8beef9e48a9; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:47:58.110Z.