JetBlue Airways Flight 1973
Airbus A320 232 · Accident: clear air turbulence encounter en route
From Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR) to Tampa International Airport (KTPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA19CA198
- 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 A320 232
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A320
- 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
- N505JB
- Operator
- Jetblue Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR), Newark, NJTo Tampa International Airport (KTPA), Tampa, FL
- Aircraft age
- About 19 years (built 2000)
- 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 · cruise
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On August 8, 2019, at 1630 eastern daylight time, JetBlue Airways flight 1973, an Airbus A320, registration N505JB, experienced turbulence during cruise that resulted in one passenger receiving a serious injury. There were no injuries to the other passengers and crew onboard, and the airplane was not damaged. The regularly scheduled passenger flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 from Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, New Jersey to Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa Bay, Florida. The turbulence encounter occurred in visual meteorological conditions.
According to the operator, while enroute in the vicinity of Charlottesville, VA, the flight crew initiated a climb from flight level (FL) 340 to FL380 due to reports of turbulence at the lower levels. During the climb, the aircraft encountered turbulence at FL350. The flight attendants (FA) stated they had just started beverage service when the turbulence began and had started to return to the galley to their jumpseats. The FA at position #3 stated the turbulence caused the beverage cart to shift, resulting in the hot liquid container toppling over onto a passenger in an aisle seat, causing burns to the passenger’s shoulder. First aid was provided to the passenger and Medlink was contacted. Emergency medical personnel met the flight upon arrival and the passenger was diagnosed with second degree burns.
Probable cause
an inadvertent encounter with clear air turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA19CA198
- Event ID
- 20190816X35649
- Case number
- DCA19CA198
- 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: a3b387af820c521457a510d15f323afd75033898f4e4a62f380baefdea35bc32; retrieved 2026-09-16T09:46:42.947Z.