American Airlines Flight 645
Airbus Industrie A-300-600 · Incident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during landing
From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Sangster International Airport (MBJ)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL98IA024
- 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
- Incident
- 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-300-600
- 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
- N90070
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), JFK, NYTo Sangster International Airport (MBJ)
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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
- Pilot in command › Recovery from bounced landing, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Montego Bay, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to the flying pilot, the existing wind information was different from the planned wind information, resulting in a 'circle to land' approach on runway 25. The downwind leg and turn to final were normal with the airplane on speed, and 'in the slot'. As per the final approach checklist the pilot armed the spoilers for deployment on main wheel touchdown. Upon touchdown the airplane bounced and the pilot said he increased the pitch attitude of the airplane to soften the second touchdown. On the second touchdown, a flight attendant heard a loud bang in the aft section of the airplane. Post flight inspection revealed damage to the tail skid area on the underside of the airplane. According to the flight manual, the deployment of the ground spoilers induces a 2 degree pitch up and increases the sink rate of the aircraft, therefore contributing to the higher pitch angle that can result in tail strikes. In the American Airlines A300 operating manual under touchdown, it states that 'no attempt should be made to hold the airplane off by further increase in attitude.' According to the flight data recorder the pitch attitude reached a maximum of 11.78 degrees which occurred when the airplane touched down for the second time. The tail strike pitch attitude is 11.4 degrees.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper recovery from a bounced landing, compounded by the automatic deployment of the ground spoilers on main wheel spin-up, resulting in a pitch angle beyond the tail strike pitch angle of the airplane, which led to the tail contacting the runway.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL98IA024
- Event ID
- 20001208X09257
- Case number
- ATL98IA024
- 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: 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: fe380ee3c387da99ed90c060eec5270a262665b0fb73db993e635dd1685581c2; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:16:38.021Z.