American Airlines Flight 1601
Boeing 777-223 · Accident: turbulence encounter on approach
From Cancún International Airport (MMUN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA21LA095
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
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
- N789AN
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cancún International Airport (MMUN), CancunTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 21 years (built 2000)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On March 15, 2021, about 1500 central standard time, American Airlines flight 1601, a Boeing 777, N789AN, encountered turbulence during approach into Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (KDFW), Fort Worth, Texas. Of the 262 passengers and crew onboard, one flight attendant sustained serious injuries. The airplane was not damaged. The regularly scheduled international passenger flight was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 from Cancun International Airport (MMUN), Cancun, Mexico to KDFW. According to the flight crew, the captain made a public address announcement to the flight attendants to prepare for landing between FL200 and FL190. When passing 8,500 ft on vectors for a visual approach to KDFW, the crew heard another aircraft in the area report turbulence on the ATC frequency. Subsequently, the captain called the number 1 flight attendant (FA) to notify him of the potential turbulence and ensure the flight attendants took their jumpseats. Approaching the GACHO intersection at 6,500 feet, the crew stated the aircraft experienced a moderate “jolt” of turbulence lasting about one second. The flight crew stated that the weather was unrestricted visibility and no precipitation in the vicinity of the turbulence encounter. At the time of the turbulence, the FAs had completed securing the cabin. One FA in the aft galley was thrown into the air and then onto the floor against the right side of the aft galley when attempting to reach her jumpseat. She injured her right hip and had to remain on the galley floor for landing. Paramedics met the flight at the gate and transported the injured FA to the hospital where she was diagnosed with a broken hip. The number 1 FA stated that he believed the turbulence call to his position should have been an “all call” priority as opposed to a phone call. The other FAs did not indicate they heard any additional warnings of impending turbulence.
Probable cause
an encounter with clear air turbulence during approach
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA21LA095
- Event ID
- 20210316102768
- Case number
- DCA21LA095
- 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, cause areas, 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: 1adc585142235192f67bdb882222ce3b7375857277bb82a7b2c5fec22beff00b; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:50:21.979Z.