Continental Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 and Boeing 727-243 · Incident: near collision between aircraft during initial climb
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA88IA055
- 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 · 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
- N806NY
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo IAD · Washington, DC
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 · Boeing 727-243
- 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
- N577PE
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR), Syracuse, NYTo 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 downwind
- 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(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Control tower service, inadequate
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Traffic advisory, delayed
- Atc personnel(lcl/gnd/clnc) › Visual separation, improper use of
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Newark, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
AT 1710:53 EST, THE LCL TWR CTLR (LC) AT THE NEWARK INTL ARPT CLRD CONTINENTAL FLT 321 (DC-9-82, N806NY) FOR TAKEOFF ON RWY 22L; 11 SEC LATER, CONTINENTAL FLT 688 (BOEING 727, N577PE) RPRTD 'LEFT DOWNWIND FOR RWY 29.' LC TOLD FLT 688 TO 'MAINTAIN 1500 AS YOU CROSS OVER THE FIELD.' RWY 22L (9300' LONG) WAS LOCATED SOUTH OF RWY 29; THUS, THE LEFT DOWNWIND FOR RWY 29 WAS NR THE DEP END OF THE 22L. AT 1712:12, LC TOLD FLT 321 THAT FLT 688 WAS PASSING 'OVERHEAD & BEHIND YOU AT 1800' . . .' AT ABOUT THAT TIME, THE CREW OF FLT 321 NOTED THEY WERE CLBG THRU 1000' WHEN THEY SAW FLT 688 PASSING DIRECTLY OVERHEAD. THE CAPT OF FLT 688 SAW FLT 321 TAKING OFF & ESTD THE SEPN REMAINED IN EXCESS OF 1000', BUT THE CAPT OF FLT 321 WAS CONCERNED ABOUT THE CLOSE PROXIMITY & CALLED THE TWR AFTER LNDG. RADAR DATA SHOWED THE PLANES PASSED WITHAPRX 400' VERTICAL & 1000' LATERAL SEPN, APRX 1/4 MI SOUTH OF THE ARPT. BOTH FLTS WERE OPERG ON IFR FLT PLANS. LC DID NOT ADZ EITHER FLT CREW OF THEIR TRAFFIC UNTIL 1712:12, MOMENTS BFR THEIR FLT PATHS CROSSED. THE ARPT HAD HVY TRAFFIC.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA88IA055
- Event ID
- 20001213X32577
- Case number
- MIA88IA055
- 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: 9df43958161c9f5f25892a904aaa77ae0f969f60d1bb2d8b132d6454721677b4; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:35:56.579Z.