American Airlines Flight 187
Boeing 777 200 · Incident
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA13WA101
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- 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
- Not recorded
Boeing 777 200
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 777
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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
- N782AN
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe 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
- Not recorded
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
On June 4, 2013, at approximately 1435 local time, American Airlines flight 187, a B777-200, N782AN, declared mayday due to emergency fuel while on approach to Beijing Capital International Airport (ZBAA) Beijing, China. As AAL187 started its approach to ZBAA, a heavy thunderstorm was present at the airport and AAL187 was unable to land. The flight crew determined Tianjin Binhai International Airport (ZBTJ) as an alternate airport, which is about 150km away from ZBAA. However, as the flight approached ZBTJ, it was also fully covered by a heavy thunderstorm, and the crew selected Shijiazhuang Zhengding International Airport (ZBSJ) as a second alternate where they landed uneventually. The flight originated from Chicago O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois.
The incident is being investigated by the Office of Aviation Safety, Northern Regional Administration (NRA) of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). In accordance with ICAO Annex 13, the NTSB has appointed a U.S. Accredited Representative as the State of Manufacture and State of the Operator.
All inquiries should be directed to the CAAC at the following:
Office of Aviation Safety Northern Regional Administration Civil Aviation Administration of China
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA13WA101
- Event ID
- 20130606X42240
- Case number
- DCA13WA101
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 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: e45bdc2ed8ea7cc5c8e07e39fb89609ef7f672a77c180d24e6ce64b285279183; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:48:03.948Z.