Weather-Related Accidents
7,093 occurrences · 1,665 fatal · 9,578 fatalities · 1949–2026
What it is
This hub covers accidents where adverse weather was a direct cause of the accident sequence — severe turbulence, thunderstorms, wind shear, microbursts, and downdrafts — as distinct from icing, which is tracked separately even though it is also weather-driven. It also includes turbulence-encounter events; injuries from severe turbulence are covered in more depth, with live forecast data, on the dedicated turbulence page.
Why it happens
Wind shear and microbursts are sudden, localized changes in wind speed or direction, often associated with thunderstorm outflow, that can push an aircraft below its intended flight path faster than a crew can correct. Encounters with severe turbulence or a thunderstorm cell are frequently linked to a flight path that did not divert far enough around known weather, sometimes because onboard weather radar was misinterpreted or the hazard developed faster than forecast.
How the industry defends against it
Airborne weather radar lets crews see and route around convective cells, and wind-shear detection systems — both predictive systems on the aircraft and ground-based sensors at major airports — provide warnings the crew must act on: a shear alert on approach triggers a mandatory go-around, while on takeoff the response is to reject the takeoff or fly a trained escape maneuver. Dispatch and en-route weather briefings, combined with standard procedures to avoid known severe-weather cells by a wide margin, address the risk before it is ever encountered in flight.
What this means for passengers
Commercial flights are dispatched with weather briefings and are equipped with radar and wind-shear detection specifically to route around the most hazardous weather rather than fly through it, and ground-based shear-detection systems back that up at major airports. Weather-related risk has historically fallen most heavily on general aviation, where aircraft may lack onboard weather radar and pilots have fewer sources of real-time weather information in flight.
Aircraft families
- Boeing 737124
- Boeing 72772
- Boeing 70772
- McDonnell Douglas DC-943
- Boeing 74739
- Boeing 76731
- Boeing 75729
- Boeing 77724
- Airbus A32020
- ATR 42/7211
Countries
- United States5,301
- United Kingdom191
- France143
- South Africa110
- Switzerland98
- Chile81
- Canada71
- Brazil59
- Germany46
- Poland41
Notable investigated accidents
- 1989-09-03 — Cubana de Aviación (171 fatalities)
- 2006-08-22 — Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise (170 fatalities)
- 1980-07-08 — Aeroflot - Russian International Airlines (166 fatalities)
- 1982-07-09 — Pan American World A/w (153 fatalities)
- 1985-08-02 — Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, Delta Airlines (135 fatalities)
- 1982-06-28 — Aeroflot - Russian International Airlines (132 fatalities)
- 2012-04-20 — Bhoja Airlines - Bhoja Air (127 fatalities)
- 1966-03-05 — British Overseas Airways Corporation - BOAC (124 fatalities)
- 1962-06-22 — Air France (113 fatalities)
- 1975-06-24 — Eastern Air Lines,inc. (112 fatalities)
- 2006-10-29 — ADC Airlines - Aviation Development Company (96 fatalities)
- 1974-12-01 — Trans World Airlines,inc. (92 fatalities)
Counts are derived from official investigation records; one accident may involve several causes, and older or foreign records can be incomplete. This page explains patterns — it is not a safety ranking.