Mesa Airlines Flight 6048
Embraer ERJ170 200LR · Accident: turbulence encounter on approach
From LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA23LA090
- 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
- 0
- 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 ERJ170 200LR
- Aircraft type
- Embraer ERJ170
- 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
- N85356
- Operator
- Mesa Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LaGuardia Airport (LGA), New York, NYTo Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), Chantilly, VA
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2017)
- 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
- Approach
- 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 as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Mesa Airlines flight 6048 encountered turbulence at 10,000 ft during descent into Dulles International Airport (IAD), Chantilly, Virgina. As a result of the turbulence, one flight attendant sustained serious injuries. The airplane landed without further incident. The flight originated from LaGuardia International Airport (LGA), New York, New York.
According to the flight crew, while descending on the HYPER EIGHT arrival, the air traffic controller advised their airplane was following a “heavy jet” and asked if a 7-mile separation would be sufficient. The captain asked for a 10-mile separation, which was granted, and the controller provided vectors to increase the spacing between the two airplanes. The crew could not see the other airplane visually, nor could they determine its location using the traffic collision avoidance system.
During the descent, as the airplane crossed the HYPER intersection at 10,000 ft and 250 knots, it encountered moderate turbulence described as a “rapid jolt” while in instrument meteorological conditions. At the time, the seatbelt sign was on, and the two flight attendants along with another commuting flight attendant, were standing in the aft galley. The turbulence resulted in all three of them being “tossed about and hit the floor.” One flight attendant sustained a broken ankle.
The flight crew declared a medical emergency and notified dispatch of the event. The commuting flight attendant assumed the duties for the injured flight attendant. The remainder of the fight was uneventful, and paramedics met the airplane at the gate and transported the injured flight attendant to the hospital.
According to the operator, the flight crew was not aware of any forecast turbulence in the area or reports of turbulence encounters by other pilots (PIREPS).
Probable cause
An encounter with turbulence during descent.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA23LA090
- Event ID
- 20221205106414
- Case number
- DCA23LA090
- 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, cause areas, 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: b4f8fe3e7e5ae0194aae477b2b1c4122035899d7e9cac1b4ab8d6839dbf969ae; retrieved 2026-09-16T16:31:40.590Z.