Continental Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 incident
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 · Incident during landing
From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN84IA023
- 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
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32
- 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
- N3512T
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, TXTo 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Pilot in command › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
APPROACHING FROM THE EAST THERE ARE 4 PARALLEL 'STRIPS' AT THE ARPT. FROM L TO R THEY ARE RWY 26L, TAXIWAY 'CHARLIE' RWY 26R & RWY 25. RWY 26L & TAXIWAY CHARLIE ARE THE SAME LENGTH. ALL 4 ARE CONCRETE COVERED. THE FLT WAS CLEARED TO LANDON RWY 26R. RWY 26L WAS BEING USED FOR INSTRUMENT APPROACHES. ABOUT 2 INCHES OF SNOW HAD FALLEN THE PREVIOUS NIGHT. SNOWREMOVAL EQUIP'T HAD CLEARED RWY 26L, RWY 26R & TAXIWAY CHARLIE BUT ALL RWYS & TAXIWAYS WERE 60-75% COVERED WITH UP TO 1/8 INCH OF MELTING SLUSH. THE CREW STATED THEY SAW WHAT APPEARED TO THEM TO BE 3 SNOW PLOWED RWYS AHEAD OF THEM: RWY 26L, 26R & 25. THEY LANDED ON THE MIDDLE STRIP. THE 3 'RWYS' THEY SAW WERE IN FACT 26L, TAXIWAY CHARLIE & 26R. THE TAXIWAY THEY HAD LANDED ON HAS A LOAD BEARING WEIGHT OF 700,000 LBS. THE RWY LIGHTS, TAXIWAY LIGHTS & ALL LIGHTING ASSOCIATED WITH THE RWYS & THE APPROACH, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF RWY 26R VASI LIGHTS, HAD BEEN TURNED OFF. THE CREW AGREEDDURING FINAL THAT THEY WERE LINED UP WITH RWY 26R & COMMENTED THAT THE GLARE WAS '...REAL BAD...'
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN84IA023
- Event ID
- 20001214X45035
- Case number
- DEN84IA023
- 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: f7c8f91c847270d0854cbe10b7041df67c470227562f4607a346b83b8c062b93; retrieved 2026-09-18T20:52:16.364Z.