American Airlines Flight 2760
Airbus 319-132 · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From San Antonio International Airport (SAT) to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA21LA209
- 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
Airbus 319-132
- Aircraft type
- Airbus 319
- 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
- N806AW
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Antonio International Airport (SAT), San Antonio, TXTo Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, IL
- 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
- 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
American Airlines flight 2760 encountered turbulence while descending through 7,000 ft to land at Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, Illinois, and a flight attendant fractured her kneecap.
The captain was the pilot flying and the first officer was monitoring. The flight was in day visual meteorological conditions (VMC), and the weather radar was on, with no signs of convective activity ahead. The captain made the announcement to the cabin crew to prepare for landing and the seatbelt sign was illuminated. The flight crew stated that ATC informed them that between HIHRY and RINNO intersections there were reports of moderate turbulence. The captain called the No. 1 flight attendant to inform her that in five minutes there was the possibility of turbulence, “likely moderate chop”, and for her to inform the rest of the cabin crew. At 7000 ft the flight encountered about 2 to 3 brief moments of moderate turbulence, but the remainder of the flight was smooth. While taxiing to the gate the flight crew was informed that the No. 1 flight attendant, who had been walking through the aisle to prepare for landing, had fallen to her knees because of the turbulence. The flight attendant was taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed with a fractured kneecap.
Probable cause
An encounter with clear air turbulence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA21LA209
- Event ID
- 20210826103756
- Case number
- DCA21LA209
- 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: de1b8a63d98e6fd2f27c05932cac32e7dfb2290b89a13ca86b3a31675e9f2896; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:27:25.213Z.