Continental Airlines Flight 1883
Boeing 757-224 · Taxiway landing due to runway identification error
From Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07IA015
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 154
- Survivors
- 154
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 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
Boeing 757-224
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 757
- 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
- N17105
- Operator
- Continental Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orlando International Airport (MCO), Orlando, FLTo Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), Newark, NJ
- 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
- 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
- Flightcrew › Wrong runway, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
Continental Airlines Flight 1883 was a Boeing 757 that mistakenly landed on a taxiway at Newark Liberty International Airport on the evening of October 28, 2006. There were no reported injuries or damage, but the narrowly averted disaster was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board, and caused the Federal Aviation Administration to reevaluate and modify air and ground safety procedures at and around Newark Airport.
Incident
Flight 1883 approached Newark from the north, initially planning to land on runway 22L using an ILS instrument approach. As the flight descended to an altitude of about 8000 - 9000 ft, air traffic controllers instructed Flight 1883 to circle to land on runway 29. This required descending toward runway 22L, followed by a low altitude circling maneuver that required a right turn at only 900 ft to line up for runway 29.
As the flight crew descended and turned toward the airport, they observed four white path indicator lights, which they believed were located to the left of the runway. This was incorrect; the instrument procedures for Newark described these indicator lights as being to the right of the runway. Keeping the indicator lights to their left, the pilots landed on 75 ft wide taxiway Z at 18:31 EDT. The Boeing 757 jetliner, with a wingspan of 124 ft, touched down at 130 kn near the intersection of taxiways Z and R, rolled out and came to a stop without incident. The aircraft then taxied to the gate where all passengers were deplaned. According to the FAA, all lighting systems associated with runway 29 and taxiway Z were operating normally at the time. Runway 29, the intended landing runway, is 150 ft wide and 6800 ft long.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The incident was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
As part of its investigation, the NTSB conducted a flight around the airport, to evaluate the lighting and visibility of the runways and taxiways. With the lighting of runway 29 and the taxiway set to the same brightness levels used during the incident, the NTSB noted that the lights for taxiway Z appeared slightly brighter than the lights for runway 29. During testing, however, the difference in lighting color (green centerline lights used on Z to indicate a taxiway, white centerline lights used on 29 to indicate a runway) was clearly visible to planes on approach.
In its final report, the NTSB described the probable cause of the incident as:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Continental Airlines Flight 1883” (revision 1353288978, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
The flight crew conducted an Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach to runway 22L, during night, visual meteorological conditions. As the airplane descended to an altitude of approximately 8,000 to 9,000 feet, the flight crew was instructed to "circle to land on runway 29." At an altitude of 900 feet, the first officer turned the airplane onto the final approach for runway 29, a 6,800 foot-long, 150-foot-wide asphalt runway. As he rolled the airplane level, he noted four white lights on the PAPI, which the flight crew believed was located to the left of the runway. As the airplane touched down, the captain realized they landed on taxiway Zulu, a 75-foot-wide concrete taxiway, aligned parallel and to the right of runway 29. The incident flight was the first officer's first approach to runway 29. Runway 29 was equipped with high-intensity runway edge lights (HIRL), which were set on step 1 (out of a 5-step system) at the time of the incident. Runway 29 also had centerline lights (CL), and runway end identifier lights (REIL), which were visually confirmed to be on at the time of the incident. The runway 29 PAPI was located on the right side of the runway, as described on the airport information page associated with the instrument procedures for the airport. Taxiway Zulu had green centerline lights, which were set on step 3 (of a 5-step system). In addition, blue reflective markers, defined the edges of taxiway Zulu. According to airport personnel, six aircraft made the same approach, within 10 minutes of the incident aircraft, and landed successfully on runway 29.
Probable cause
The flight crew's misidentification of the parallel taxiway as the active runway, resulting in the flight crew executing a landing on the taxiway. Contributing was the night lighting conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Continental Airlines Flight 1883
- Revision
- 1353288978 · 2026-05-09 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q20656831
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record NYC07IA015
- Event ID
- 20061101X01592
- Case number
- NYC07IA015
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Continental Airlines Flight 1883" (page 23461854, revision 1353288978); merged with NTSB case NYC07IA015 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record NYC07IA015: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NYC07IA015
- Map position
- NTSB record NYC07IA015: NTSB API eventLatitude/eventLongitude
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NYC07IA015: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NYC07IA015: operated under Part 121: Air Carrier
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NYC07IA015: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NYC07IA015: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Continental Airlines Flight 1883" and NTSB case NYC07IA015, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates, 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.