American Airlines Flight 168
Boeing 787-9 · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND) to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA25LA044
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Boeing 787-9
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 787
- 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
- N833AA
- Operator
- American Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND), TokyoTo John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), New York, NY
- Aircraft age
- About 7 years (built 2017)
- 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 · cruise
- 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
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
American Airlines flight 168, encountered unanticipated moderate to severe turbulence during cruise at 34,000 feet (FL340) while enroute to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), New York, New York from Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND), Tokyo, Japan. As a result, two flight attendants (FAs) sustained serious injuries. Before departing, the flight crew stated they all reviewed the weather forecast on their weather briefing app before departure and noted no significant turbulence or convective activity. The flight departed HND in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) and climbed on the assigned standard instrument departure procedure and leveled off at FL340 in VMC above an overcast layer. The flight crew stated the flight was smooth during the climb out, with occasional “very light” turbulence.
During cruise, the captain and the first officer recalled monitoring the weather radar and did not detect any convective activity in the area. Approximately 30-40 minutes after departure, the overcast area rose into the airplane’s altitude. At that time, the FAs were moving around the galley and cabin for service. The captain made an announcement for the FAs to be seated, but the airplane encountered moderate to severe turbulence. After the turbulence subsided, the captain was informed that two FAs had been injured and were unable to continue their duties. Neither requested immediate medical attention. The flight continued uneventfully to JFK, where the injured FAs were met by company personnel and later sought medical evaluation. One FA was diagnosed with a fractured tibia, and another with a fractured ankle. Two additional FAs later reported minor injuries. No passengers were injured.
Probable cause
An encounter with turbulence while in cruise flight, resulting in serious injuries to two flight attendants.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA25LA044
- Event ID
- 20241121195532
- Case number
- DCA25LA044
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 2b74fe1e5c915dcb4c61d014653e3afc6c1fe73e68f1e0ee388f0018a2131ebc; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:29:41.373Z.