USAir Boeing 737-300 accident
Boeing 737-300 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) to Tampa International Airport (TPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL87LA046
- 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 737-300
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N369AU
- Operator
- USAir
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), Pittsburgh, PATo Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, FL
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Weather condition › Turbulence, clear air
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Dublin, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
WHILE CLBG TO FL 350, USAIR FLT 95 ENCTRD CONT 'LIGHT CHOP,' SO CREW LVLD AT FL 310 & LEFT THE SEAT BELT SIGN ON. THEY INQUIRED ABOUT TURBC AHEAD & WERE ADZD OF RPRTD LGT/MOD CHOP & 1 ENCTR WITH SVR TURBC AT FL260. CLNC WAS RCVD TO DSCND TO FL 240. DRG DSCNT, THE ACFT ENCTRD SEVERE TURBC. THE CAPT DECLARED AN EMERG & THE DSCNT WAS CONTD TO FL 200. THE CAPTNOTED TURBC LASTED APRX 1.5 MIN BTN FL 270 & FL 210. THERE WERE NO CLDS; THE VIS (AT NGT) WAS UNLIMITED. THE FLT ATTEND-ANTS WERE UNRESTRAINED; 1 WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED & 3 RECEIVED MINOR INJURIES. A SIGMET WAS IN EFFECT WHICH FORCAST MOD TOOCLNLY SEVERE TURBC BTN FL 240 & FL 350 IN AN AREA WEST OF THE ACFT'S FLT PATH. INV SHOWED AN INCONSISTENCY IN THE DIS- SEMINATION OF CENTER WX ADVISORIES (CWA'S) & SIGMETS. ALTHO CWA'S & SIGMETS HAD THE SAME LVL OF PRIORITY FOR ATC & FSS USE, CWA'S WERE NOT DISSEMINATED OVR 604 & 135 WX CIRCUITS. USAIR RECEIVED WX INFO VIA FAA'S 604 & 135 CIRCUITS, SO DID NOT HAVE CWA INFO FOR WX BRIEFINGS. WX STUDY SHOWED TURBC WAS ENCTRD WHERE SUBTROPICAL & POLAR JET STREAMS CONVERGED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL87LA046
- Event ID
- 20001213X35305
- Case number
- ATL87LA046
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1986-12-23.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6966ad175760cb3ab154f5e9bfb6b53e0521efcd8107d2ff93b5113b31e3d299; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:45:31.691Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N369AU; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, USAA.