American Airlines Flight 869
Airbus Industrie A-300B4-605R A300B4-605 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Miami International Airport (MIA) to Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96FA064
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Airbus Industrie A-300B4-605R A300B4-605
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A-300
- 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
- N7076A
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Miami International Airport (MIA), Miami, FLTo Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU), San Juan, PR
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Passenger › Seat belt sign, not complied with
- Weather condition › Turbulence(thunderstorms)
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
The flight climbed to 33,000 feet after departure, where it encountered turbulence. The captain turned on the seat belt sign and announcements were made to the passengers to remain seated with their seat belts fastened. ATC informed the pilots that other pilots reported smoother air at 27,000 and 35,000 feet. They descended to 27,000 feet, encountered turbulence and then requested 35,000 feet. After reaching 35,000 feet, they encountered greater turbulence and requested and received clearance to 33,000 feet. During descent, they encountered severe turbulence which resulted in injuries to passengers. A SIGMET had been issued by the National Weather Service for active intensifying thunderstorms at the point of the turbulence encounter. The weather information supplied to the pilots by the operator did not contain this SIGMET; however, it did contain a company forecast for possible isolated thunderstorms within showers as indicated in the flight release.
Probable cause
the turbulence and failure of the passengers to have their seat belts fastened. A factor relating to this accident was: the failure of the aircraft operator to advise the flight crew of forecast active intensifying thunderstorm conditions in the area of the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96FA064
- Event ID
- 20001208X05168
- Case number
- MIA96FA064
- 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. 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: 02e10f1224689f901ba517611df3a15a07b1aa8c62a5594a38c0c03ea5b0435d; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:54:39.399Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N7076A; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AALA.