American Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-80 accident
McDonnell Douglas MD-80 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) to Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL99LA049
- 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 MD-80
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-80
- 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
- N433AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), CHIGAGO, ILTo Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU), Raleigh, NC
- 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 · 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
- Weather condition › Turbulence, clear air
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Raleigh, NC, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the airplane was descending through 17,000 feet for an approach into Raleigh, North Carolina when severe turbulence was encountered. The flight attendants were securing the passenger cabin and galley for landing at the time of the occurrence. The pilot reported that the fasten seat belt sign was on. According to the pilot, clear air turbulence was not forecasted. Examination, the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) revealed that the turbulence was encountered at an altitude of approximately 17,462 feet on a magnetic heading of approximately 144 degrees. The DFDR also indicated that during the turbulence, vertical acceleration reached a maximum of 2.05 G's and a minimum of -.49 G's.
Probable cause
The flight encountered clear air turbulence while descending through 17,000 feet mean sea level (MSL).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL99LA049
- Event ID
- 20001205X00124
- Case number
- ATL99LA049
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: cfda6f2957653fc34798d36d6716747f3adf38e47970d991fc8e21e97c0d1927; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:59:38.474Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N433AA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AALA.