Three flight attendants were left seriously injured after a United Airlines Boeing 777 encountered abrupt turbulence while descending toward Newark Liberty International Airport, in an incident that federal investigators say was aggravated by a missed warning from air traffic control. The episode, which occurred on February 10, 2024, over United States airspace, is now drawing renewed scrutiny after a final report by the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that a key turbulence report from another aircraft was never relayed to the United crew. The findings are raising questions about reliability and resilience in the nation’s air traffic control communications, just as U.S. skies become busier and weather more volatile.
The Incident Over the Eastern United States
United Airlines Flight 1890, operating from Los Angeles to Newark, was nearing the end of its transcontinental journey when it flew into a pocket of unstable air on descent into the New York area. According to the NTSB report released this week, the widebody Boeing 777 had been tracking an arrival route that showed no significant turbulence on the aircraft’s onboard radar or electronic weather displays. Thunderstorms were in the broader region, but nothing on the instruments suggested the violent jolt the crew and passengers were about to experience.
Within seconds, the aircraft experienced a rapid vertical acceleration and deceleration associated with severe turbulence. The jet dropped and then pitched sharply, causing unsecured occupants and loose items in the cabin to become airborne. Although the fasten seat belt sign was illuminated, several passengers and crew members were still up as the flight attendants conducted final cabin checks in preparation for landing.
Amid the sudden lurch, three flight attendants working in the galley area bore the brunt of the forces. One was reportedly thrown up to the ceiling and slammed back to the floor, suffering a fractured spine. Two others lost consciousness after striking interior structures, with one sustaining a shattered femur, crushed vertebrae and a head injury, and another suffering facial trauma and bleeding in the brain. Passengers without seat belts, including a baby being held on a lap and a traveler in the lavatory, were also tossed into the air before the aircraft stabilized and continued to Newark.
How an ATC Communication Lapse Escalated the Risk
What transformed a dangerous but potentially manageable encounter into a severe injury event, investigators say, was a breakdown in standard communication procedures at a critical moment. Approximately three minutes before United 1890 hit the unstable air, another aircraft operating in the same sector radioed a report of moderate turbulence to air traffic control. Under Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, controllers receiving such pilot weather reports are required to acknowledge and disseminate them to other aircraft that may be affected.
According to the NTSB, that did not happen. The controller handling the sector later told investigators they did not hear the turbulence report, so it was never transmitted onward to the United crew. As a result, the pilots of Flight 1890 were deprived of a real-time warning from another aircraft directly in front of them on essentially the same path. Such a report would likely have prompted them to slow earlier, alter altitude or route, or keep cabin crew seated and secured rather than allowing final checks to proceed.
The missed communication highlights a vulnerability in the link between pilots and controllers that technology alone has not resolved. While cockpit weather radar and electronic data services provide valuable information, pilot reports remain a cornerstone of day-of-flight weather situational awareness. When those reports are not heard, logged, or shared, a vital layer of safety is stripped from the system, especially in busy and weather-sensitive terminal airspace like the approaches into Newark and the New York metropolitan area.
Inside the NTSB’s Findings
The NTSB’s final report, issued nearly two years after the incident, reconstructs the sequence of events from voice recordings, radar data, aircraft performance information and medical records. Investigators concluded that the probable cause of the injuries was the aircraft’s encounter with severe turbulence during descent in convective weather, with a contributing cause being the air traffic controller’s failure to disseminate a contemporaneous report of moderate turbulence from another aircraft in the vicinity.
The board noted that the controller’s failure to hear or register the initial report meant that no subsequent broadcast to other aircraft was made. That omission represented a deviation from FAA procedures governing the handling of Pilot Weather Reports, commonly known as PIREPs. Those procedures regard turbulence and other hazardous conditions as critical safety information that must be quickly shared with all relevant traffic.
Investigators also examined cockpit actions and airline procedures. The pilots were found to have complied with standard protocols based on the information they had, including using weather radar, following ATC instructions, and keeping the seat belt sign on. The cabin crew likewise followed company procedures, conducting routine checks during descent while the sign remained illuminated. The NTSB did not identify systemic procedural violations by United Airlines but urged renewed emphasis on conservative turbulence practices, especially in regions of known convective activity.
Implications for Air Traffic Control and Communication Protocols
The turbulence incident lands at a time when the U.S. air traffic control system is already under intense pressure from staffing constraints, aging infrastructure and increasingly complex weather patterns. In previous disruptions, including recent brief losses of radar and radio contact in Northeast airspace, controllers and pilots have voiced concern that a system built for a different era is being stretched close to its limits.
At the heart of the United 1890 case is not a sweeping technological failure but a more basic human and procedural lapse: a vital piece of spoken information was not heard, logged, or shared. Experts say that as traffic density increases, relying heavily on a single controller’s ability to catch every transmission in a busy frequency band becomes a growing vulnerability. The NTSB’s findings are likely to intensify calls for better recording, alerting and automation tools that can flag unacknowledged safety-critical reports in real time.
Air traffic unions and safety advocates have long argued that under-resourced facilities, combined with high workload and chronic fatigue, increase the risk of communication slips. While the investigation into this specific incident did not publicly attribute the lapse to staffing levels, the broader context of controller shortages and heavy traffic flows at major East Coast hubs is unavoidable. For regulators, the question now is how to ensure that every turbulence report and weather warning is consistently captured and relayed, regardless of who is working a given sector on a given day.
Turbulence, Weather and Rising Risk in U.S. Skies
Turbulence has always been part of aviation, but recent studies and operational experience suggest that its frequency and intensity may be increasing in some regions, including transcontinental corridors over the United States. Airlines are reporting more instances of clear air turbulence that is not easily detected by radar, particularly at cruise altitudes, while convective systems closer to major hubs are creating increasingly complex descent and arrival challenges.
In the United 1890 incident, the NTSB emphasized that thunderstorms and unstable weather were predicted in the general area. The aircraft’s systems, however, did not show clear evidence of the severe turbulence that ultimately emerged along the descent path. That gap underscores why pilot reports remain so significant: they capture real-world conditions moments after they occur, often in the exact stretch of sky another aircraft is about to traverse.
For travelers, such events are a reminder that turbulence is not merely a discomfort but a genuine safety issue when seat belts are unfastened and crew are mobile in the cabin. Most turbulence encounters do not result in injuries, and modern airliners are designed to withstand substantial aerodynamic loads. Yet when sudden vertical accelerations catch people standing or loosely restrained, human bodies, rather than aircraft structures, become the most vulnerable part of the system.
United Airlines’ Response and Crew Safety Focus
United Airlines has not been accused of causing the turbulence encounter, but the serious injuries to its crew have put a renewed spotlight on how carriers manage turbulence risk. In public statements after the incident and in responses to investigators, the airline has emphasized its reliance on a blend of meteorological forecasting, onboard technology and pilot judgment to limit exposure to dangerous conditions.
Industry observers expect United and other major carriers to use the NTSB report as a basis to revisit cabin procedures, especially in the final stages of flight when many passengers are still stowing items, using lavatories or standing while flight attendants conduct checks. Some carriers have already moved toward longer periods where cabin crew remain seated with belts fastened when thunderstorms or unstable air are in the vicinity, even if no specific turbulence reports have been received.
For flight attendants, the incident is another stark example of occupational risk. Cabin crew unions have for years advocated for stricter turbulence protocols and more conservative use of standing service in choppy conditions. The injuries on Flight 1890, including spinal fractures and serious head trauma, are likely to fuel renewed efforts to prioritize crew safety over schedule or service norms, particularly during approach and landing phases.
Regulatory and Industry Changes on the Horizon
Following publication of the report, attention is turning to what the FAA and industry stakeholders will do in response. While formal rulemaking can be a slow process, turbulence events that result in serious injuries often trigger immediate operational advisories and voluntary improvements, even before regulations catch up. Aviation analysts expect several strands of work to evolve from this case.
One likely area of focus is the handling of PIREPs and other safety-critical voice communications. Regulators may push for systems that automatically flag reports containing key terms like turbulence, wind shear or severe icing, ensuring they cannot quietly slip past without acknowledgment. Enhanced training for controllers on the prioritization and restatement of such reports to all affected traffic is also probable.
On the airline side, operators may refine descent and arrival procedures in convective seasons, build additional margins into routing around storm systems, and instruct crews to be even more conservative in allowing cabin movement when any turbulence is expected. Data-sharing initiatives between carriers and government agencies, using anonymized turbulence and wind data from aircraft sensors, are also expanding, which could help create more precise, real-time turbulence maps over U.S. airspace.
What This Means for Travelers
For passengers reading about yet another turbulence incident involving a major U.S. carrier, the natural question is whether flying has become less safe. Statistically, commercial aviation in the United States remains extraordinarily safe, with serious injuries from turbulence still rare compared with the vast number of flights operated each day. Structural damage to modern aircraft from turbulence is even rarer. The United 1890 case, however, illustrates that safety depends on a chain of protections, and a single broken link in that chain can have serious human consequences.
Travelers can take away several practical lessons. Keeping seat belts fastened whenever seated, even when the sign is off, significantly reduces the risk of injury in sudden turbulence. Heeding crew instructions to sit down quickly when conditions worsen is equally important. While the cause of this incident lay in a communication failure far from passengers’ control, individual behavior still plays a meaningful role in how turbulence events unfold inside the cabin.
At a broader level, the investigation serves as a reminder that maintaining safety in increasingly congested skies requires relentless attention to detail from every part of the system. From air traffic control facilities managing crowded sectors to pilots making routing decisions and flight attendants safeguarding the cabin, each actor depends on timely, accurate information. The lapse that preceded the United Airlines turbulence incident shows how even a brief breakdown in that information flow can turn otherwise survivable atmospheric bumps into a serious workplace accident for the crew.