Continental Airlines Boeing 737 724 accident
Boeing 737 724 · Accident: turbulence encounter en route
From Denver International Airport (DEN) to Billings Logan International Airport (BIL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA14LA060
- 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
- Unknown
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
- N23708
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, COTo Billings Logan International Airport (BIL), Billings, MT
- Aircraft age
- About 16 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Turbulence encounter
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight departed normally and climbed to its cruising altitude where it encountered light turbulence. The flight crew descended to a lower altitude twice in an effort to find a smooth ride. The flight encountered an area of severe mountain wave turbulence when the flight was cruising at flight level (FL) 340 in smooth air with the seat belt sign off seriously injuring two flight attendants.
According to the NTSB weather study, an Airman's Meteorological Information (AIRMET) for moderate turbulence for altitudes between FL270 and FL390 was issued at 0745 MST for a region that included the accident location. The flight dispatch release for the accident aircraft, which included weather information, included a Flight Planning Guidance product from WSI that advised of light/occasional moderate mountain wave activity between FL310 and FL390 close to where the accident occurred.
Probable cause
an encounter with severe mountain wave turbulence during cruise flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA14LA060
- Event ID
- 20140212X03156
- Case number
- DCA14LA060
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 5008902a6c451f298cbeca09f6e107a55a0bc950bf49336b650f300b05ba3acb; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:19:03.893Z.