Continental Airlines Boeing 737-222 incident
Boeing 737-222 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure on approach
From Denver International Airport (DEN) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW92IA184
- 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 737-222
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N12235
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, COTo 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 · IFR final approach
- 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
- None
Cause areas
- Fluid, hydraulic › Exhaustion
- Hydraulic system, line › Chafed
- Hydraulic system, line › Incorrect
- Unknown › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE AIRPLANE EXPERIENCED A DUAL HYDRAULIC SYSTEM FAILURE DURING FINAL APPROACH. THE CAPTAIN ELECTED TO GO AROUND AND LAND AT A NEARBY MILITARY AIRPORT THAT HAD LONGER RUNWAYS. THE LANDING WAS UNEVENTFUL. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT A HOLE HAD BEEN CHAFED THROUGH A RETURN LINE IN THE 'A' HYDRAULIC SYSTEM AT A BRACKET IN THE LEFT WHEEL WELL AREA. IT WAS ALSO DETERMINED THAT AN 'A' SYSTEM AND A 'B' SYSTEM RETURN LINE HAD BEEN CROSS CONNECTED IN THE AREA OF THE NO. 1 PYLON. THE CROSS CONNECTED LINES ALLOWED THE 'B' SYSTEM FLUID TO TRANSFER INTO THE 'A' SYSTEM AND VENT OVERBOARD. BOTH HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS, INDICATIONS AND READINGS, AND TESTS WERE NORMAL UNTIL THE HOLE WAS CHAFED THROUGH THE 'A' SYSTEM LINE. A MAINTENANCE RECORD REVIEW COULD NOT DETERMINE AT WHAT POINT IN TIME THE LINES HAD BEEN REVERSED.
Probable cause
HYDRAULIC FLUID EXHAUSTION DUE TO THE CHAFED 'A' SYSTEM HYDRAULIC LINE AND THE IMPROPER INSTALLATION BY UNKNOWN MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL OF THE 'B' SYSTEM LINE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW92IA184
- Event ID
- 20001211X15150
- Case number
- FTW92IA184
- 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: 9073904f37df089dedc9ac352571328dc5a5ed4d2fd5657eb183fe2f8d86be25; retrieved 2026-09-18T18:45:39.401Z.