Continental Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 accident
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather on approach
From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN93FA047
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas DC-9
- 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
- N14816
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC), Salt Lake City, UTTo 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
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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
- Weather condition › Microburst/dry
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE ON FINAL APPROACH, AT APPROXIMATELY 100 FEET AGL, THE AIRCRAFT EXPERIENCED A SIGNIFICANT LOSS OF INDICATED AIRSPEED AND ENCOUNTERED A HIGH SINK RATE WHICH TERMINATED IN A HARD LANDING. THE LOWER AFT BODY OF THE AIRCRAFT IN THE AREA OF THE TAIL SKID WAS CRUSHED INWARD CAUSING STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. AT 47 FEET ABOVE TOUCHDOWN AND 126 KNOTS THE AIRPLANE BEGAN TO ROTATE AND DESCENDED TO 3 FEET ABOVE TOUCHDOWN, WITH AN AIRSPEED OF 109 KNOTS, IN 3 SECONDS. TOUCHDOWN OCCURRED WITH A NOSE UP ATTITUDE OF 8.334 DEGREES WITH A VERTICAL ACCELERATION OF 2.246 G. TOUCHDOWN OCCURRED AT 110 KNOTS WITH FULL POWER BEING DEVELOPED. THE LLWAS DID NOT ACTIVATE. NCAR RESEARCHERS REPORTED THAT A LOCALIZED MICROBURST COULD OCCUR WITHOUT ACTIVATING THE LLWAS.
Probable cause
AN INFLIGHT ENCOUNTERWITH A MICROBURST AT AN ALTITUDE INSUFFICIENT TO EFFECT RECOVERY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN93FA047
- Event ID
- 20001211X12113
- Case number
- DEN93FA047
- 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. 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: d59d2f828889701dee3f28295704935d70457807ac1e0c19651732acc28ce960; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:38:05.898Z.