Continental Airlines Boeing 727-224 incident
Boeing 727-224 · Incident: in flight collision with object during initial climb
From LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Denver International Airport (DEN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN85IA065
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Boeing 727-224
- 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
- N79748
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From LaGuardia Airport (LGA), Flushing, NYTo Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, CO
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Airport personnel › Airport snow removal, inadequate
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
ACFT STRUCK A SEAWALL DIKE IMMEDIATELY AFTER TAKEOFF FROM RUNWAY 13 AT LA GUADIA AIRPORT, FLUSHING, NY. ACFT CONTINUED ON TO DENVER, CO WHERE UNEVENTFUL LANDING WAS MADE. POST-FLIGHT INSPECTION REVEALED MINOR DAMAGE TO TAILSKID AND NUMBER 2 ENGINE THRUST REVERSER. INVESTIGATION DISCLOSED IMCOMPLETE AND INADEQUATE SNOW REMOVAL FROM RUNWAY AND LACK OF VISUAL CUES AVAILABLE DUE TO POOR WEATHER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN85IA065
- Event ID
- 20001214X35500
- Case number
- DEN85IA065
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (6)
- 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: 603d6eab71186b9f519a727e4d5a73f1f6ee1c6a401c7dd7fbd81756eede5a55; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:32:13.096Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N79748; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, CALA.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: departure. The narrative states the aircraft struck a seawall dike "IMMEDIATELY AFTER TAKEOFF FROM RUNWAY 13 AT LA GUADIA AIRPORT, FLUSHING, NY"; the departure was not recorded.