Continental Airlines Flight 920
Boeing 727-200 · Accident: abrupt maneuver en route
From Manuel Crescencio Rejón International Airport (MID) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW93FA100
- 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
Boeing 727-200
- 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
- N79754
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Manuel Crescencio Rejón International Airport (MID), MERIDA,MEXICOTo 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
- En route · cruise
- 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
- Abrupt maneuver
- 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
- Pilot of other aircraft › Flight advisories, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING CRUISE AT FLIGHT LEVEL 350, WHILE OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO, THE CREW RECEIVED A CLIMB RESOLUTION ADVISORY FROM THE TRAFFIC ALERT AND COLLISION AVOIDANCE SYSTEM (TCAS). THE CREW INITIATED A CLIMB INITIALLY AT 1,500 FPM, AND THEN INCREASED THE CLIMB TO 2,500 FPM. A PASSENGER STANDING NEAR THE AFT GALLEY SUSTAINED SERIOUS INJURIES. THE TRAFFIC WAS A NASA T-38A PERFORMING A FUNCTIONAL CHECK FLIGHT. DURING THE STALL SERIES, THE T-38A HAD DESCENDED THROUGH FLIGHT LEVEL 350, AND THE PILOT INITIATED A CLIMB BACK TO ABOVE FLIGHT LEVEL 350. THE T-38A WAS VFR BASED ON A LETTER OF AGREEMENT, AND THE PILOT HAD BEEN ADVISED BY ATC NOT TO GO BELOW FLIGHT LEVEL 350 BECAUSE OF NUMEROUS TRAFFIC IN THE AREA. THE LETTER OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN HOUSTON ARTCC, NASA, HOUSTON INTERCONTINENTAL TOWER, AND THE 147TH FIGHTER INTERCEPTOR GROUP, ELLINGTON FIELD, TEXAS, WAS IN VIOLATION OF EXTANT INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATION (ICAO) AGREEMENTS, AND WAS RESCINDED ON 3/10/93, THE DAY FOLLOWING THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE PILOT OF THE T-38A TO FOLLOW FLIGHT ADVISORIES. A FACTOR WHICH CONTRIBUTED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE DEVELOPMENT OF A LETTER OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE FAA AND NASA WHICH WAS NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH ICAO PROCEDURES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW93FA100
- Event ID
- 20001211X11972
- Case number
- FTW93FA100
- 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: investigation status, damage. 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: 5bda801b68ab3ffd4d7daf237c9a561c8c5fd52f366313f08d5ee771eedc4b4e; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:40:23.869Z.