Washington DC - Houston

On February 19, 1996 at 09:04 AM, Washington DC - Houston experienced a crash involving Douglas DC-9, operated by Continental Airlines, with the event recorded near Houston-George Bush-Intercontinental Texas.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was landing (descent or approach) at a airport (less than 10 km from airport) crash site.

87 people were known to be on board, 0 fatalities were recorded, 87 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 0.0%.

Crew on board: 5, crew fatalities: 0, passengers on board: 82, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. The airplane landed wheels up and slid 6,850 feet before coming to rest in grass about 140 feet left of the runway centerline. The cabin began to fill with smoke, and the airplane was evacuated. Investigation showed that because the captain had omitted the 'Hydraulics' item on the in-range checklist and the first officer failed to detect the the error, hydraulic pressure was not available to lower the landing gear and deploy the flaps. Both the captain and the first officer recognized that the flaps had not extended after the flaps were selected to 15°. The pilots then failed to perform the landing checklist and to detect the numerous cues alerting them to the status of the landing gear because of their focus on coping with the flap extension problem and the high level of workload as a result of the rapid sequence of events in the final minute of flight. The first officer attempted to communicate his concern about the excessive speed of the approach to the captain. There were deficiencies in Continental Airlines' (COA) oversight of its pilots and the principal operations inspector's oversight of COA. COA was aware of inconsistencies in flightcrew adherence to standard operating procedures within the airline; however, corrective actions taken before the accident had not resolved this problem.

Aircraft reference details include registration N10556, MSN 47423, year of manufacture 1970.