Continental Airlines Flight 5148
Boeing 727-227 · Accident: wheels up landing on approach
From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI94FA039
- 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 727-227
- 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
- N16762
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, TXTo 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 go-around
- 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
- Wheels up landing
- 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
- Pilot in command › Gear extension, not performed
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Chicago, IL, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
THE FLIGHT CREW REPORTED IT WAS A HEAVY TRAFFIC PERIOD, AND ATC WAS USING PARALLEL RUNWAYS. THEY REPORTED THEY WERE VECTORED ONTO A LONGER THAN NORMAL FINAL APPROACH, AND SLOWED DOWN EARLIER THAN USUAL. 25 DEG FLAPS WAS SELECTED TO MAINTAIN THE ASSIGNED AIRSPEED, BUT THEY DELAYED LANDING GEAR EXTENSION BECAUSE OF THEIR DISTANCE FROM THE RUNWAY. NUMEROUS GENUINE AND 'PHANTOM' TCAS TRAFFIC ALERTS WERE RECEIVED DURING THE APPROACH, WHICH DISTRACTED THEM FROM THE CHECKLIST. AT 500 FT AGL, THE GPWS SYSTEM BEGAN TO SOUND 'WHOOP WHOOP TERRAIN', AND THE CREW STATED THEY WERE DISTRACTED BY ALL THE NOISE IN THE COCKPIT, AND CONFUSED BY THE 'TERRAIN' MESSAGE FROM THE GPWS. WHEN THE GPWS WAS (AUTOMATICALLY) INHIBITED AT 50 FT AGL, THE CREW RECOGNIZED THE LANDING GEAR WAS NOT EXTENDED. THEY EXECUTED A GO-AROUND, AND THE AFT FUSELAGE STRUCK THE RUNWAY IN THE PROCESS.
Probable cause
THE CAPTAIN'S FAILURE TO ASSURE THAT THE LANDING GEAR WAS EXTENDED FOR LANDING. FACTORS RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WERE: TRAFFIC ALERT DISTRACTIONS, THE FLIGHT CREW'S FAILURE TO USE THE CHECKLIST, AND INADEQUATE COMPANY SYSTEMS TRAINING.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI94FA039
- Event ID
- 20001211X13714
- Case number
- CHI94FA039
- 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: d3ff26ec7340347ea0e7520268b1b914ff23bd87295f7cf5b419b5747bad1a65; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:25:46.842Z.