American Airlines Boeing 757-223 accident
Boeing 757-223 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX90LA055
- 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
Boeing 757-223
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 757
- 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
- N611AM
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), DALLAS/FT WORTH, TXTo not recorded
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Copilot/second pilot › Flare, improper
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Santa Ana, CA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE TAIL OF A BOEING 757 STRUCK THE RUNWAY DURING A VISUAL NIGHT LANDING AT THE ORANGE COUNTY AIRPORT. THE FLIGHT DATA RECORDER INDICATED A PITCH ATTITUDE OF 11.074 DEGREES FOR TWO SECONDS AT TOUCHDOWN. THE BOEING COMPANY STATED THE MAXIMUM PITCH AT TOUCHDOWN SHOULD NOT EXCEED 10.3 DEGREES. THIS WAS THE CAPTAIN'S FIRST NIGHT TIME FLIGHT INTO ORANGE COUNTY AIRPORT IN THIS TYPE OF AIRCRAFT. AIRCREWS CERTIFIED IN THE BOEING 767 AIRCRAFT ARE ALSO QUALIFIED IN THE BOEING 757 AIRCRAFT. AS OF FEBRUARY, 1990, THERE HAVE BEEN 27 KNOWN TAIL STRIKES IN THE 767 AND 51 TAIL STRIKES IN THE 757 AIRCRAFT DURING THE TAKEOFF AND LANDING PHASES OF FLIGHT.
Probable cause
THE COPILOT'S OVERROTATION OF THE AIRCRAFT DURING THE FLARE WHICH ALLOWED THE TAIL TO COLLIDE WITH THE RUNWAY. THE FAILURE OF THE CAPTAIN TO TAKE APPROPRIATE CORRECTIVE ACTION WAS A FACTOR IN THE ACCIDENT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX90LA055
- Event ID
- 20001213X29982
- Case number
- LAX90LA055
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1989-12-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 24989a85cd0e7e5d981dcfec453c69ead887d52a8cf8441796573fd789879d8a; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:06:15.278Z.