Continental Airlines Boeing 737 incident
Boeing 737 and Gates Learjet 24E · Incident: near collision between aircraft en route
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC88IA109
- 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
Aircraft 1 · Boeing 737
- 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
- N69348
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJTo Boston Logan International Airport (BOS), Boston, MA
- 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 · climb to 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
- Near collision between aircraft
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Aircraft 2 · Gates Learjet 24E
- Aircraft type
- Learjet 24
- 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
- N500NH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Teterboro Airport (TEB), TETERBORO, NJTo Waukegan National Airport (UGN), Waukegan, IL
- 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 91: General Aviation
- 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 · climb to 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
- Near collision between aircraft
- 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
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › IFR separation standards, not maintained
- Atc personnel(dep/apch) › Monitoring, inadequate
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Morristown, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
BOEING 737 (N69348) WAS DEPG NEWARK INTL ARPT AS A LEAR JET 24 (N500NH) WAS DEPG FM TETERBORO. BOTH WERE BEING CTLD BY NEW YORK TRACON (NEWARK SECTOR). THE STRIP FOR THE 737 WAS MISMARKED AS A NORTH DEPARTURE RATHER THAN AN EAST DEPARTURE.THE INSTRUCTOR/FULL PERFORMANCE LEVEL CONTROLLER (FPL CTLR) SAT AT THE RADAR SCOPE IN A PSN WHERE HE COULD NOT VERIFY THE MARKINGS ON STRIPS WHICH WERE BEING USED BY THE DEVELOPMENTAL CTLR. WHEN AN AUTOMATED HANDOFF WAS INITIATED TO THE WRONG SECTOR, BOTH NEWARK CTLRS DISCOVERED THE ERROR. THE DEVELOPMENTAL CTLR STARTED TO TAKE ACTION TO MAINT SEPARATION BETWEEN THE 737 & THE LEAR JET. HOWEVER, THE FPL CTLR TOOK CONTROL & THE REQUIRED IFR SEPARATION WAS SUBSEQUENTLY LOST. BOTH ACFT WERE OPERATING ON IFR FLT PLANS IN VFR CONDITIONS. NO EVASIVE ACTION WAS TAKEN BY EITHER FLT CREW.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC88IA109
- Event ID
- 20001213X25328
- Case number
- NYC88IA109
- 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: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-03-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 545d640c39da308087d3a521f67eacbca72eda358a971597ca0e1462dde171f1; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:25:09.061Z.