BOEING 777-223 — Pacific Ocean, USA, 2011-04-11

NTSB summary

As the airplane was climbing, the flight crew observed a small weather buildup in front of them. They requested a deviation around the weather, but the air traffic controller requested that they stand by. After entering the weather, they received clearance to turn; however, about 24,000 feet, the airplane encountered about 11 seconds of moderate, and then severe, turbulence. During the encounter, two flight attendants received broken ankles while conducting work in the aft cabin area. The digital flight data recorder revealed that during the encounter vertical acceleration forces went from 2.2G to 0.6913G within 1 second, to a minimum of 0.496G about 5 seconds after the 2.2G maximum. A weather study conducted by a National Transportation Safety Board meteorologist revealed a frontal wave over the Japanese coast with a warm front extending eastward in the vicinity of the turbulence encounter. A gale force wind was expected. The region of the turbulence encounter also contained low to mid-level clouds with cloud tops near 14,000 feet; cumulonimbus cloud development, with tops up to 26,000 feet, was slightly upstream from the turbulence encounter. Review of the weather package given to the flight crew found no forecasts for turbulence and no Significant Meteorological Information advisories (SIGMETS) were in effect for the route of flight. At the time of the occurrence, there were no reports of turbulence from pilots ahead of the accident flight and the flight crew saw no indication of turbulence on their weather radar.

Probable cause

An inadvertent encounter with convective-induced turbulence upon entering cumulonimbus clouds.

Flight data recorder

— 35,052 samples, 60 parameters, 06:05:49.0 to 15:50:00.0.

Sequence of events (FDR factual report)

Recorder documents in the docket

Docket: data.ntsb.gov/Docket/?NTSBNumber=WPR11LA203. This brief is an analytical aid assembled from public records; it is not an investigative finding.