On Dec. 13, an American Boeing 737 ended up with a damaged wingtip after part of its main landing gear veered off the runway while touching down in low visibility in Charlotte, N.C. In Kingston, Jamaica, on Dec. 22 another American Boeing 737 careened off the end of a runway while landing on the island amid heavy rain. The jet's fuselage broke into three sections and its crumpled nose slid to a halt barely feet from the shoreline. Several people were hospitalized, but there were no fatalities.

The three events prompted FAA officials to start analyzing Fort Worth, Texas-based American's data on landing incidents as well as voluntary pilot reports about such past occurrences. Agency officials are expected to focus on assessing certain aspects of the carrier's pilot-training programs, and how American's safety managers have responded to the spate of landing slip ups, the people familiar said.

"Where there may be several incidents involving a single carrier over a short period of time, FAA inspectors increase their oversight, which we're doing now, and conduct a review of those events to determine whether they might be indicative of a larger issue," the FAA spokesman said in a statement. If that is the conclusion, according to the agency's statement, "the FAA communicates its findings to the air carrier and assists in the development of the appropriate corrective action."

The review comes as new details emerged about the Jamaica crash. The wheels of the jet first touched the runway some 4,000 feet down the nearly 9,000-foot long airstrip, according to one person familiar with the matter. Water on the runway could have made it difficult to stop, this person said.