Continental Airlines Flight 1447
Boeing 727-243 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA94IA110
- 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 727-243
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 727
- 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
- N59412
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW), FT. MYERS, FL
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- 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
- Landing gear, main gear attachment › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHEN LANDING GEAR EXTENTION WAS ATTEMPTED IN PREPARATION FOR LANDING, THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR DID NOT EXTEND. THE PILOT MADE A GO-AROUND, COMPLETED THE REQUIRED EMERGENCY PROCEDURES, COULD NOT LOWER THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR, AND DIVERTED TO ANOTHER AIRPORT. THE PILOT LANDED WITH THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR IN THE RETRACTED POSITION. THE AIRPLANE SUSTAINED MINOR DAMAGE. THE 9 CREWMEMBERS AND 141 PASSENGERS WERE NOT INJURED. EXAMINATION OF THE LEFT MAIN LANDING GEAR DISCLOSED A BROKEN LANDING GEAR DOOR ACTUATOR FITTING. SEVERAL SERVICE BULLETINS HAD BEEN ISSUED OUTLINING REPETITIVE INSPECTIONS PROCEDURES AIMED AT PREVENTING SUCH FAILURES. THE OPERATOR HAD COMPLIED WITH ALL APPLICABLE SERVICE BULLETINS AND AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVES.
Probable cause
The total failure of the left main landing gear door actuator fitting due to fatigue cracking in the fitting. Contributing to the accident was inadequate written inspection procedures by the aircraft manufacturer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA94IA110
- Event ID
- 20001206X01148
- Case number
- MIA94IA110
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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. 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: 568194e14325337c6497f5927457525661b5363b6bcdc4090986616fce9278fb; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:18:52.807Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N59412; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, CALA.