Aeronaves de Mexico (aomf McDonnell Douglas DC-8-51 accident
McDonnell Douglas DC-8-51 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX) to Miami International Airport (MIA)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA84LA229
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-8-51
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-8
- 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
- XAPIK
- Operator
- Aeronaves de Mexico (aomf
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mexico City Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX), Mexico CityTo Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, 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 129: Foreign
- 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
- Pilot in command › Passenger briefing, inadequate
- Seat belt › Improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CAPTAIN REPORTED THAT THE SEAT BELT SIGN WAS LEFT ON FOR THE ENTIRE FLT FROM MEXICO CITY TO MIAMI. APRX 50 MI FROM KEY WEST, THE FLT BEGAN A DESCENT FROM FL370. WHILE DESCENDING THRU ABOUT 11,500 FT, THE ACFT ENCOUNTERED SEVERE TURBULENCE. AT THAT TIME, THE AIRSPEED WAS 270 KTS & THE ACFT WAS PASSING THRU A CUMULUS CLOUD. ONE PASSENGER SUFFERED A SERIOUS INJURY, 4 PASSENGERS & 4 FLT ATTENDANTS RECEIVED MINOR INJURIES. THE FLT CREW CONTINUED TO MIAMI INTL ARPT & LANDED WITHOUT FURTHER INCIDENT. A WX STUDY REVEALED A LARGE AREA OF LEVEL 2 TO LEVEL 5 THUNDERSTORMS ALONG THE ROUTE. THERE WAS A CONVECTIVE SIGMET FOR AN AREA OF THUNDERSTORMS WITH TOPS TO 45,000 FT. THE PASSENGERS STATED THAT NO PREVIOUS ANNOUNCEMENTS WERE MADE TO WARN THEM OF POSSIBLE TURBULENCE, EXCEPT FOR THE SEAT BELT SIGN. INJURIES OCCURRED WHEN OCCUPANTS WERE THROWN ABOUT THE CABIN OR AGAINST LOOSE SEAT BELTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA84LA229
- Event ID
- 20001214X40405
- Case number
- MIA84LA229
- 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: a9756d6d5eb07b0302d9c3dc6182b1eddba4930e4c8754d8b80636c9eb884ca9; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:38:29.309Z.