Continental Airlines Flight 381
Boeing 737-130 · Incident: gear not extended during landing
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94IA081
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- 0
- 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 737-130
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N408PE
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo not recorded
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- First occurrenceThe 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
- Gear not extended
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Company/operator management › Procedure inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
BEFORE DEPARTURE THE AIRLINE HAD MAINTENANCE PERFORMED ON THE AIRPLANE. UPON COMPLETION OF MAINTENANCE MECHANICS REMOVED THE WHEEL CHOCKS AND TOWED THE AIRPLANE TO THE DEPARTURE GATE. A PRE-FLIGHT INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE WAS COMPLETED BY THE FIRST OFFICER. SHORTLY BEFORE PUSHBACK, THE LEAD SAFETY AGENT INSPECTED THE AIRPLANE. WHILE MAKING ITS LANDING APPROACH THE FIRST OFFICER COMMANDED LANDING GEAR DOWN. TWO GREEN LANDING GEAR SAFE LIGHTS WERE OBSERVED. ONE LANDING GEAR UNSAFE LIGHT ILLUMINATED. THE CREW DECIDED THE LEFT LANDING GEAR WOULD NOT EXTEND AFTER MANY ATTEMPTS. THE CAPTAIN LANDED THE AIRPLANE WITH THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR PARTIALLY EXTENDED. THE ON-SCENE INVESTIGATION REVEALED WHEEL CHOCKS WEDGED BETWEEN THE WHEEL WELL LIP AND INSIDE LEFT MAIN GEAR TIRE. THE COMPANY HAD NOT ESTABLISHED PROCEDURES CONCERNING PLACEMENT OF WHEEL CHOCKS BY ITS MAINTENANCE, FLIGHT, AND GROUND SERVICE PERSONNEL.
Probable cause
AN INADEQUATE PROCEDURE FOR HANDLING OF WHEEL CHOCKS BY COMPANY MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS PERSONNEL. FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS ACCIDENT WERE AN INADEQUATE INSPECTION OF THE AIRPLANE BY COMPANY MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL, AND AN INADEQUATE PRE-FLIGHT INSPECTION BY THE CO-PILOT.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94IA081
- Event ID
- 20001206X00724
- Case number
- CHI94IA081
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1994-02-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 94b9bc8ff0a20d89a699a86b39424ba122c31b0e333328ae2b55bb10e0977f05; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:21:51.168Z.