American Airlines Flight 1258
McDonnell Douglas MD-82 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) to Orlando International Airport (MCO)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL03LA014
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-82
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-82
- 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
- N479AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dallas, TXTo Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, FL
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the Captain, the airplane encountered a moderate bump of turbulence, about one second in duration. He stated that the airplane was skimming a broken layer of clouds with about 2,000 feet of vertical buildup. He stated that the preparation for landing public address was given about six minutes before the airplane encountered the turbulence. According to the Captain, there was "nothing on the radar or visual observation of the sky condition to suggest any more than light turbulence. The number one flight attendant stated the Captain told the flight attendants that there might be turbulence ahead and for them to clean up and sit down. She stated that they were in the process of cleaning up "when it got really bad," and she had to hold onto the seatback. She stated that she saw the number two flight attendant's legs extending into the aisle. The number one flight attendant stated that the number two flight attendant had fallen onto her ankle and she helped her into her seat. At the gate, emergency personnel put a splint on her ankle and transported her to the hospital, where it was later discovered that her ankle was broken.
Probable cause
The airplane's inflight encounter with turbulence that resulted in injuries to the number two flight attendant.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL03LA014
- Event ID
- 20021112X05460
- Case number
- ATL03LA014
- 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, coordinates, 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: 4a759cb3119f551f5ea9ba821a65030cbd772f64d3b2aa580330783284957735; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:57:09.867Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N479AA; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, AALA.