Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-1011 accident
Lockheed L-1011 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU) to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC87FA264
- 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
Lockheed L-1011
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L-1011
- 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
- N317EA
- Operator
- Eastern Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), San Juan, PRTo John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, NY
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Passenger › Seat belt sign, disregarded
- Weather condition › Turbulence, clear air
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRCRAFT WAS CRUISING AT FL310 EN ROUTE BETWEEN PUERTO RICO AND NEW YORK WHEN IT ENCOUNTERED CLEAR AIR TURBULENCE. SEVERAL PASSENGERS AND FLIGHT ATTENDANTS WERE THROWN ABOUT THE CABIN OF THE AIRCRAFT. ONE FLIGHT ATTENDANT RECEIVED A BROKEN WRIST. THE FLIGHT DIVERTED TO BERMUDA WHERE THE INJURED PASSENGERS WERE TREATED AND RELEASED. THE FLIGHT CREW SAID THEY WERE OPERATING IN CIRRO-STRATUS CLOUDS AT THE TIME OF THE OCCURRENCE AND NO ECHOES WERE BEING SHOWN ON THE AIRBORNE RADAR. THE SEATBELT SIGN WAS ILLUMINATED AT THE TIME OF THE OCCURRENCE AND THE CAPTAIN SAID IN AN INTERVIEW THAT HIS NORMAL PROCEDURE WAS TO KEEP THE SIGN ON AT ALL TIMES.
Probable cause
ENCOUNTER WITH UNDETECTABLE CLEAR AIR TURBULENCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC87FA264
- Event ID
- 20001213X32186
- Case number
- NYC87FA264
- 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. 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: 24195b4f12bf16fe7afed73dcc24e30a9dc8c22352e9a1fdfe72916f05144e4b; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:37:14.065Z.