Continental Express Flight 3332
Aerospatiale ATR-42-320 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Bradley International Airport (BDL)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC98FA062
- 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
- 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
Aerospatiale ATR-42-320
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale ATR-42
- 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
- N15827
- Operator
- Continental Express
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Bradley International Airport (BDL)
- 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 · landing roll
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fuel system, filter › Cross/stripped threaded
- Fuel system, filter › Failure, total
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, overhaul, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Windsor Locks, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
During the landing roll, a fire erupted in the right engine. The airplane was stopped on the runway, the engines were shut down, and the occupants evacuated. The investigation revealed that one of three studs used to hold the fuel filter on the fuel/oil heat exchanger had pulled out of the housing. This allowed fuel to spill into the engine bay and come in contact with hot engine surfaces. The installed unit had accumulated about 1,000 hour since overhaul. Examination of the unit revealed the stud had pulled out of an oversized lug hole. Examination of the overhaul manual published by the component manufacturer revealed insufficient information on procedures for working with the lug holes and how to ensure the lug holes were properly drilled and the studs properly inserted in the lug holes.
Probable cause
The improper overhaul of lug holes on the fuel/oil heat exchanger. A factor was the lack of direction contained in the manufacturer's overhaul manual for working with the lug holes.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC98FA062
- Event ID
- 20001211X09494
- Case number
- NYC98FA062
- 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 1998-01-22.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f8a962568ac36eac8cdc6da80cda6a67e70194f3a94267f4b0b8e1f47228f8fb; retrieved 2026-09-18T17:14:18.386Z.