Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control; Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter
Flight Crew Regained Aircraft Control
Procedure; Environment - Non Weather Related
We were inbound to LGA; level at 18;000 ft in smooth air; no clouds at 300 knots indicated with the autopilot on. No traffic was observed visually; on TCAS or on frequency. Suddenly we hit what I'm convinced was wake turbulence. We snap-rolled violently and in a second or two were out of the wake turbulence. Thankfully we had the seat belt sign on; and the flight attendant was ok; I'm not sure how they didn't get hurt. If a passenger had been up and or an overhead bin open; I think someone would have been hurt. I've been flying here for going on six years; and I've only experienced this once before. That incident was almost identical to this one except we were at about 11;000 ft and nearly the same geographic location. From now on flying into NYC I think I'm going to have the seatbelt sign on and flight attendant seated when we are 30 minutes out.
CRJ-200 Captain reported the aircraft 'snap-rolled violently' when they encountered wake turbulence inbound to LGA.