Continental Airlines Flight 1232
Aerospatiale A-300B4 · Incident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) during takeoff
From Denver International Airport (DEN) to George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN90IA154
- 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
Aerospatiale A-300B4
- Aircraft type
- Aerospatiale A-300
- 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
- N72990
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN)To George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, TX
- 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
- Takeoff · roll/run
- 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
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Turbine assembly, turbine wheel › Failure, total
- Turbine assembly, turbine wheel › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE CAPTAIN OF CONTINENTAL AIRLINES FLIGHT 1232, AN A300B4 AIRBUS, EN ROUTE FROM DENVER TO HOUSTON, ABORTED THE TAKEOFF AT STAPLETON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AFTER A CATASROPHIC UNCONTAINED FAILURE OF THE LEFT ENGINE PRIOR TO THE AIRPLANE REACHING V1. THE AIRPLANE WAS BROOUGHT TO A STOP ON THE RUNWAY. TWO TIRES BLEW OUT; SIX TIRES DEFLATED WHEN THE FUSE PLUGS MELTED. ONE BRAKE DID NOT ATTAIN MAXIMUM BRAKING EFFECTIVENESS. A SEGMENT OF THE FIRST STAGE HIGH PRESSURE TURBINE ROTOR DISK SEPARATED. METALLURGICAL EXAMINATION DISCLOSED A PREEXISTING FATIGUE CRACK.
Probable cause
ENGINE FAILURE DUE TO TURBINE WHEEL FAILURE, INDUCED BY FATIGUE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN90IA154
- Event ID
- 20001212X23673
- Case number
- DEN90IA154
- 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: 202990aaffe71ebd50d0731b9b4f6078a9573829f26c7f303bda1c7194e9bad7; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:01:23.747Z.