Delta Air Lines Flight 2023
Airbus A330 323 · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA18CA102
- 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 A330 323
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A330
- 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
- N817NW
- Operator
- Delta Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, FLTo Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport / Wold–Chamberlain Field (MSP), Minneapolis, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2007)
- 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 February 24, 2018, at about 1258 central standard time, Delta Air Lines flight 2023, an Airbus A330-323, N817NW, encountered turbulence while descending enroute to Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP), Minneapolis, Minnesota. Of the 298 passengers and crew onboard, one flight attendant sustained serious injuries and two flight attendants sustained minor injuries. The airplane was not damaged. The flight was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, Florida, to MSP. According to the flight crew, air traffic control indicated that there were no pilot reports of significant turbulence from preceding airplanes along their descent route. However, the flight encountered severe turbulence as it was descending through about flight level 200. The seatbelt sign was illuminated. When the turbulence was encountered, the flight attendants were beginning their cabin preparations for landing and the flight attendants were thrown to the floor. One flight attendant was thrown against the 4R door, striking her head and back. After landing, the injured flight attendant was transported to the hospital and diagnosed with a fractured vertebrae.
Probable cause
an inadvertent encounter with clear air turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA18CA102
- Event ID
- 20180228X30813
- Case number
- DCA18CA102
- 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: 253a851045792adc8d9691686aff9e0acf4574f5426df8f47007fec02f22b341; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:32:48.682Z.