MIA85FA178 · Airbus Industrie A-300B4-2C
Airbus Industrie A-300B4-2C · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) to Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA85FA178
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Airbus Industrie A-300B4-2C
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A-300
- 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
- N206EA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), Philadelphia, PATo Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), San Juan, PR
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Crew/group coordination, not performed
- Pilot in command › Procedures/directives, not followed
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ESTABLISHED IN CRUISE FLIGHT CONDITIONS THE COMMERCIAL AIRLINER ENCOUNTERED AN AREA OF FORECAST THUNDERSTORMS. THE CAPTAIN ELECTED TO ATTEMPT TO FLY THROUGH THE AREA. AS THE AIRLINER WAS ATTEMPTING TO AVOID THE THUNDERSTORMS IT ENCOUNTERED ONE RAPID UP AND DOWN DRAFT. THIS CAUSED 2 SERIOUS INJURIES AND 19 MINOR INJURIES. THE FLT CONTINUED ON TO THE DESTINATION AND WAS MET BY MEDICAL PERSONNEL WHO TREATED AND EVACUATED THE INJURIED. VARYING ACCOUNTS WERE RECEIVED FROM PASSENGERS AS TO WETHER OR NOT THE SEAT BELT SIGN WAS ILLUMINATED PRIOR TO ENCOUNTERING THE TURBULENCE, HOWEVER, THE CABIN CREW REPORTED THAT THE LIGHT WAS ILLUMINATED AT THE TIME AND A SEAT BELT CHECK HAD BEEN MADE. NEITHERTHE FLT ATTENDANTS NOT THE PASSENGERS REPORTED HEARING A PA ANNOUNCEMENT PRIOR TO THE TURBULENCE. ONE FLT ATTENDANT WAS INFORMED BY THE FLT ENGINEER THAT THEY WERE APPROACHING AN AREA OF ROUGH WX BUT THIS INFO WAS NOT PASSED ONTO THE REMAINING CABIN CREW MEMBERS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA85FA178
- Event ID
- 20001214X36521
- Case number
- MIA85FA178
- 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: 97b337a17599d1841cbec914478025be65cb3ff00896f102e62c5d14eeedb77e; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:22:23.264Z.