American B752 over Venezuela on Aug 30th 2014, severe turbulence causes loss of 7500 feet

An American Airlines Boeing 757-200, registration N177AN performing flight AA-213 (dep Aug 29th) from Miami,FL (USA) to Brasilia,DF (Brazil), was enroute at FL350 about 160nm west of Caracas (Venezuela) when the aircraft lost more than 7500 feet within a minute. The crew recovered the aircraft below FL275, then radioed "We lost altitude due to severe turbulence and are climbing back to FL350". The aircraft levelled off at FL350 about 10 minutes after departing FL350 and continued the flight to Brasilia for a safe landing without further incident.

A source told The Aviation Herald, that the aircraft lost more than 5000 feet (radar data confirming the information and identifying more than 7500 feet of loss of altitude). The altitude excursion caused a conflict with other traffic.

ATC recordings of Maiquetia Area Control do not indicate the controller had any concern of a possible conflict and did not use compromised separation recovery procedures. Another American Airlines Boeing 767-300 at FL340 heading north was already north of AA-213 when the altitude excursion began.

Map (Graphics: AVH/Google Earth):

Infrared Satellite Image GOES-E Aug 30th 2014 06:00Z (Graphics: AVH/NASA):