DCA18CA007 · Boeing 767 328
Omni Air International Boeing 767 328 · Accident: clear air turbulence encounter en route
From Osan Air Base (RKSO) to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (PHNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA18CA007
- 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
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
Boeing 767 328
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 767
- 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
- N342AX
- Operator
- Omni Air International
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Osan Air Base (RKSO), OSAN Air Base / PyeongtaekTo Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (PHNL), Honolulu, HI
- Aircraft age
- About 24 years (built 1993)
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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
- Clear air 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 October 15, 2017, at about 1022 universal coordinated time , Omni Air International, LLC, Boeing B-767-300ER, N342AX, was enroute to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (DFS), Honolulu, Hawaii, when the flight encountered turbulence that caused serious injuries to one "deadheading" cabin crew member. None of the other 11 crew members were injured and the airplane was not damaged. The flight was conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 between Osan Air Base (OSN), Pyeongtaek, Republic of Korea, to DFS.
As the flight was descending through about flight level 315 over the Pacific Ocean, approximately 117 miles from DFS, the airplane entered a thunderstorm cell and encountered severe turbulence that lasted about 30 seconds. When the turbulence was encountered, an off duty "deadheading" cabin crew member was in the aisle near the aft lavatory and was thrown to the floor injuring her right ankle. After being notified of the injury, the flight crew contacted telemedical advisory services via voice satellite communications and was provided medical direction to stabilize the injured crew member. Emergency medical personnel met the airplane on arrival and the injured crew member was transported to a local hospital where she was diagnosed with fractures in the right lateral and medial malleolus.
Analysis of digital flight data retrieved from the Aeromechanical Systems Airborne Flight Information Reporting System (AFIRS) indicated that the airplane experienced vertical accelerations up to 1.78 g's and as low as 0.46 g's, with a change in rate of descent ranging from +240 feet per minute to -4,080 feet per minute. The flight crew reported no indication of precipitation or wind shear on the installed radar. The operator indicated that review of recorded telemetry reported by four other aircraft in the area equipped with The Weather Company Turbulence Auto-PIREP System (TAPS) showed no evidence of turbulence at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
an inadvertent encounter of clear air turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA18CA007
- Event ID
- 20171015X05250
- Case number
- DCA18CA007
- 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: e0b55a759eb397dd914a9f210e23f23866aa9629b008afa01de65edca4470202; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:56:09.507Z.