USAir Flight 10
Boeing 727-200 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL) to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA257
- 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
Boeing 727-200
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N774AL
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL), FT.LAUDERDALE, FLTo Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- En route · descent
- First occurrenceThe 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Flight attendant › Judgment, poor
- Passenger › Passenger briefing, disregarded
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Pittsburgh, PA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE DESCENDING OUT OF FLT LVL 270 FOR LNDG, USAIR FLIGHT 10 ENCOUNTERED LIGHT TO MODERATE TURBULENCE. PRIOR TO THIS THIS ENCOUNTER, THE CAPT ADVISED ALL PASSENGERS AND CABIN CREW TO REMAIN SEATED AND TO ENGAGE THEIR SEATBELTS. A SIMILAR ANNOUNCEMENT WAS MADE BY THE CABIN ATTENDANTS. AN ELDERLY INVALID FEMALE PASSENGER STATED SHE HAD TO USE TO THE RESTROOM PRIOR TO LNDG SINCE HER WALKING DEVICE WAS BEING SHIPPED AND SHE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO USE THE FACILITIES AT THE ARPT. THE ATTENDANTS ATTEMPTED TO DISSUADE HER BUT SHE PREVAILED. TWO OF THEM HELPED HER TO HER FEET AND WERE IN THE PROCESS OF ASSISTING HER DOWN THE ISLE WHEN THEY WERE ALL THROWN TO THE FLOOR BY INFLIGHT TURBULENCE. THE PASSENGER SUSTAINED TWO BROKEN BONES AND OTHER INJURIES. THE FLT WAS GIVEN SPECIAL HANDLING AND LNDD WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA257
- Event ID
- 20001213X32183
- Case number
- NYC87FA257
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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, 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: 55244ab1c27305a7dd663a3145b1b02bab287f1c65d8d6b327c0e87fa867fb0f; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:37:29.634Z.