Continental Airlines Flight 1662
Boeing 737-724 · Accident while standing
From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) to Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC)
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05LA048
- 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
- Accident
- 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
- Unknown
- 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 737-724
- 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
- N16732
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), Houston, TXTo Gunnison Crested Butte Regional Airport (GUC), Gunnison, 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Driver of vehicle › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the captain, after landing on runway 06, they rolled out and turned off on A8 taxiway. While taxiing westbound to the gate, airport operations requested him to hold on the taxiway between A4 and A5, to give a Delta Air Lines pushback crew some room to move another airplane. After stopping, he set the brakes, and made a passenger announcement. Approximately 3 minutes later, the airplane was struck from the left rear by a snowplow. The force of the impact pushed the left main landing gear forward approximately 10 feet, turning the airplane to the right as it rotated about its right main landing gear. The captain stated that he shut down the engines, requested an assessment from the flight attendants, and told the first officer to call for fire equipment. He then surveyed the damage from the cockpit window and aft galley service door window. By that time, the snowplow had backed off to the east approximately 50 yards. The captain stated that the airport visibility was reported at 2 miles. However, he could see the Western State "W" on a hill, approximately 2.5 miles south of the airport. After an assessment of the damage and confirmation from the fire crew that it was safe, the airplane was towed to the ramp and the passengers were deplaned with the airstairs. The snow plow operator stated visibility was poor. He said he was unsure of where the airplane was. As he was plowing the taxiway "out of nowhere was the 737." The driver applied brakes, but it was too late. Following the accident, the airport made several changes to its operating procedures with respect to snowplow operations and radio communications with airport vehicles.
Probable cause
the snowplow driver's failure to see the airplane during plowing operations. Factors contributing to the accident were the snowplow driver's excessive speed and the snow.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05LA048
- Event ID
- 20050118X00061
- Case number
- DEN05LA048
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 15617ad0963720582ac7d77c3a186f643886c42eaf81c54c26392a7d65bf050d; retrieved 2026-09-18T15:08:51.256Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N16732; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, CALA.