Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 271N accident
Airbus A320 271N · Accident: abrupt maneuver en route
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA21LA082
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 271N
- 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
- N918NK
- Operator
- Spirit Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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 from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airplane experienced an abrupt maneuver during initial descent and a flight attendant fractured their ankle. According to the flight crew, just prior to top of descent the captain informed the flight attendants to prepare the cabin early because there was weather in the vicinity of the arrival airport. Shortly after that, the first officer (FO), who was the pilot flying, initiated the descent. Air traffic control then cleared the flight to a lower altitude and requested they increase their descent. The FO complied, and increased their vertical speed, however, at some point, he engaged "open descent" mode. The FO saw the airspeed increasing towards red line and he pulled back on the stick and the autopilot disengaged. The captain said he then took control using the autopilot disconnect/priority switch and applied aft stick pressure to return the airplane to a normal descent pitch attitude to prevent an overspeed. According to the flight crew, the airplane was in clear air and smooth flight conditions when the event occurred. Two flight attendants (FA) in the aft galley, were thrown into the air and onto the floor. The captain was notified that one of the FAs had been injured and would need assistance when they got to the gate. A deadheading FA assumed the injured FAs duties for the remainder of the flight. After landing, the FA was transported to a local hospital and diagnosed with a fractured ankle.
Probable cause
An abrupt flight control input by the flight crew during descent that caused a flight attendant to fall and fracture their ankle.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA21LA082
- Event ID
- 20210210102620
- Case number
- DCA21LA082
- 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: 226e50d9f65bbd12848cc0b5a67277b466402b08ad6b7d92746ec8d185afc7c3; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:37:47.981Z.