Created Friday, Jan 7th 2022 12:12Z, last updated Friday, Jan 7th 2022 12:12Z
A Piedmont Airlines Embraer ERJ-145 on behalf of American Airlines, registration N648AE performing flight
AA-4797 from Columbia,SC to Philadelphia,PA (USA) with 38 passengers and 3 crew, was on approach to Philadelphia descending through about 7000 feet when the aircraft encountered turbulence causing injuries to a flight attendant. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on Philadelphia's runway 27R about 15 minutes later.
The FAA reported the flight attendant received a serious injury, a fracture of the right hand ankle when the aircraft encountered turbulence. The occurrence was rated an accident.
On Jan 7th 2022 the NTSB released their final report concluding the probable cause of the accident was:
An inadvertent encounter with convective turbulence.
The NTSB reported the flight attendant received serious injuries.
The NTSB analysed:
The captain was the pilot flying, and the first officer was monitoring. As the flight approached KPHL, the first officer made a public address announcement to the flight attendant to prepare the cabin for arrival. While descending through about 10,000 feet for the visual approach to runway 35, the crew noted a cloud layer below them and, in order to transit the cloud layer quickly, the captain increased the descent from about 1,000 feet per minute (fpm) to about 1,300 fpm.
When the airplane entered the cloud layer at about 7, 00 feet, it encountered moderate turbulence along with icing conditions. The captain stated that to prevent an overspeed and mitigate turbulence effects, he immediately reduced the thrust to idle and inadvertently pressed the autopilot disconnect button instead of the Touch Control Steering (TCS) button, which he had intended to activate in order to manually raise the airplanes nose. He stated he maintained control of the airplane, eased the nose up to level flight, and immediately reengaged the autopilot. The crew stated the turbulence lasted about 25 to 30 seconds.
At the time of the turbulence encounter, the flight attendant (FA) was in the aisle conducting her before landing compliance checks. She was at the rear of the cabin turning around when she was thrown to the floor, injuring her ankle. Medically qualified passengers assisted the FA with the injury and another passenger manned the FA’s jumpseat during landing. Emergency medical personnel met the airplane at the gate and transported the FA to the local hospital where she was diagnosed with a fractured ankle.
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