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American Airlines Flight 60

10 Jun 2018 · Decatur, TX, United States

Boeing 777 223 · Accident: turbulence encounter on approach

From Narita International Airport (RJAA) to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (KDFW)

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Event

NTSB case
DCA18CA201
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
Unknown

Boeing 777 223

Aircraft type
Boeing 777
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
N750AN
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From Narita International Airport (RJAA), NaritaTo Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (KDFW), Dallas/Ft. Wort, TX
Aircraft age
About 17 years (built 2001)
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
Approach
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
Turbulence encounter
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

  • Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
  • Personnel issues › Action/decision

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

On June 10, 2018, at about 2043 UTC, American Airlines flight 60, N750AN, B777-200, turbulence during descent to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (KDFW) Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. Of the 269 passengers and crew onboard, one passenger received serious injuries and seven flight attendants received minor injuries. There was no damage to the airplane. The flight was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 as a scheduled international passenger flight from Narita International Airport (RJAA) Narita, Japan, to KDFW.

As the flight began its descent into KDFW, the captain illuminated the seatbelt sign and made a public address announcement reminding passengers that the seatbelt sign was on and that they were to "return to your seats and buckle up for the remainder of the flight." Shortly after the captain notified the flight attendants (FA) to "prepare for landing and take your seats", the airplane entered a band of small cumulus clouds and experienced 10-15 seconds of moderate turbulence.

When the turbulence was encountered, the FAs were conducting their final cabin safety checks since the captain had informed them that there might be turbulence during descent. As a result, seven FAs were thrown to the floor and one passenger, who had ignored the seatbelt sign and instructions to remain seated, was also thrown to the floor and injured his left ankle. The FAs notified the flight crew, who arranged for paramedics to meet the airplane at the gate. After landing, the passenger was transported to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a broken ankle and the seven FA's who had received various minor injuries were treated at the airplane and released.

Probable cause

the passengers failure to comply with the fasten seatbelt sign when the airplane encountered convective turbulence.

Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record DCA18CA201
Event ID
20180611X85348
Case number
DCA18CA201
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: investigation status, 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: a7f7e2972a34022f2ad232a06fff911eb620bd57679db0d38e57498cff5223d2; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:26:59.783Z.