Air Canada Lockheed L-1011 accident
Lockheed L-1011 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Port of Spain to TORONTO,CANADA
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA84AA008
- 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
- Unknown
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
- CFTNJ
- Operator
- Air Canada
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Port of SpainTo TORONTO,CANADA
- 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 · 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
- Weather condition › Turbulence, clear air
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Charleston, SC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING FLT AT FL350, THE FLTCREW NOTED SOME THUNDERSTORMS IN THE VICINITY OF THEIR ROUTE OF FLT & ADVISED THE ATC CONTROLLER THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE TO DETOUR. AFTER TURNING & CLIMBING TO FL370, THEY NOTED 'MODERATE CHOP TO LIGHT TURBULENCE' & SAW A FLASH OF LIGHTNING TO THE NORTH. THE FLTCREW TURNED ON THE SEATBELT SIGN & ANNOUNCED IN FRENCH & ENGLISH FOR OCCUPANTS TO REMAIN SEATED & FASTEN THEIR SEATBELTS. WHILE FLYING IN 'UPPER CLOUD' ABOUT 20 MI DOWNWIND FROMA LINE OF THUNDERSTORMS, THE ACFT ENCOUNTERED SEVERE TURBULENCE. SOME OCCUPANTS WHO WERE NOT PROPERLY RESTRAINED WERE INJURED & SOME WERE HIT BY LOOSE OBJECTS. SERVICE CARTS AS WELL AS OTHER OBJECTS WERE THROWN ABOUT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA84AA008
- Event ID
- 20001214X45027
- Case number
- DCA84AA008
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1983-11-25.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9f13934780fee9a3e2a8200f1c655880bac1ab58e50baff88e095a94f076eea1; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:50:34.609Z.