Continental Airlines Flight 1404 bound for Houston ran 200 yards off a runway at Denver International Airport and into a ravine Saturday night, catching fire and injuring 38 of the 112 people aboard, authorities said.
None of the injuries appeared critical. Those onboard escaped down emergency chutes from the side of the fractured plane about 6:18 p.m.
The cause of the Boeing 737’s crash and fire has not been determined.
“It was way too early to know what caused it,” Kim Day, manager of aviation for city of Denver, said.
The fire was quickly extinguished by Denver Fire Department crews from a station just 100 yards from the site, said Assistant Fire Chief Steve Garrod.
Firefighters were stunned by what they found, with the passengers making their way from the broken plane.
“We train for this sort of thing every day,” said Denver Fire Division Chief Patrick Hynes. “But it was described to me as much like a movie scene. People were coming out of the smoke, climbing up the hill.”
A firefighter at the scene told Hynes, “It was a heck of a firefight.”
Capt. Brian Gallagher of the Denver Police Department said four people had moderate to serious injuries, with head injuries and shortness of breath that might have been related to heart conditions. The others were treated for “broken bones and fractures, bumps and bruises,” he said.
Crews had not determined whether the fire happened before or after the plane veered off the runway. The plane smoldered until it was declared extinguished about 9:30 p.m. The overhead luggage bins melted onto the seats, fire officials said.
Hynes said it had not officially been determined whether the flight got off the ground, but the runway was littered with wreckage, “which indicates to me it might have been airborne. The wheels were sheared off.”
Happy to have missed flight
Andrew Leskiw, 22, of Cleveland just missed the connection home from Telluride. He had rebooked his flight when he heard the plane may have gone down with a school friend on board.
“I’m pretty glad I missed it,” Leskiw said.
Both were members of the Ohio State University Ski Club, and Leskiw would identify his friend only as “Jeff.”
Jeff’s girlfriend, from Boulder, told Leskiw that Jeff had suffered smoke inhalation but wasn’t expected to be hospitalized.
“He was on the left side of the plane behind the wing when the plane started to take off, came back down and skidded off,” Leskiw said, recounting the conversation with Jeff’s girlfriend. “The whole cabin filled with smoke.”
Hynes said fuel was leaking from both wings and the plane came to rest on its right side, braced by a wing.
The airplane was about 2,000 feet down the 12,000-foot 34-Right runway when it veered off to the right, airport officials said.
David C. Bowling, head of the regional office of the National Transportation Safety Board, joined others from his office investigating the accident, according to the agency.
Four hospitals get patients
Dee Martinez, spokeswoman for Denver Health Medical Center, said Denver Health transported 38 people. She said Denver Health received 10. As of 10:30 p.m., two had been admitted and eight were being evaluated. All were in good condition, she said.
She said that of the 38, she was told nine went to the University of Colorado Hospital at the Anschutz campus in Aurora, 15 to the Medical Center of Aurora and four to Swedish Medical Center in Englewood.
Martinez said all the remaining passengers were moved to Concourse A, where they were being evaluated by medics.
Earlier in the evening, Tonya Ewers, spokeswoman for the University of Colorado, said eight patients had been received, all in fair condition. She said six of the passengers are female, two male.
Amy Speagle, spokeswoman for the Medical Center of Aurora, said the 10 patients received earlier in the evening had minor injuries.
Julie Lonborg, spokeswoman for Swedish Medical Center, said the hospital received eight passengers.
“All are in fair condition, and we expect to treat and release all of them,” said Lonborg.
She said most received bumps and bruises and were complaining of sore throats from smoke. All of the patients were from the Denver area or had been visiting in Denver, except for one family. She said all were eager to return to their homes or the homes of friends they had been visiting.
Abnormal runway exit
At 9:55 p.m., Continental Airlines issued a written statement saying it had confirmed that Continental Flight 1404, a Boeing 737-500 aircraft bound from Denver to Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport, “exited the runway” at DIA.
“Continental and Denver International Airport are providing assistance to the passengers at this time,” said the statement by Maria Cristina Osori, spokeswoman for the airline.
“A number of injuries have been reported and authorities are transporting passengers and crew to area medical facilities as necessary.”
The company said it was gathering additional information and will release the information later.
Weather does not appear to be a likely suspect, airport officials said.
Winds were out of the west and northwest at 24 mph, with gusts up to 32 mph, at the time of takeoff, according to the National Weather Service.
“That’s pretty normal,” said meteorologist Kyle Fredin. “That’s what it had been doing all afternoon.”
DIA flights were delayed about 40 minutes Saturday night, with delays expected to last throughout the day today.
Opened in 1995, DIA was the 11th- busiest airport in the world last year with nearly 50 million passengers. The airport was fifth-busiest for takeoffs and landings with more than 614,000 in 2007, according to the trade association Airports Council International.
Airport’s safety history
The airport’s only airplane-related fatality was on Sept. 5, 2001, when Joao Rodrigues, 24, was refueling a British Airways Boeing 777 plane. A fuel nozzle disconnected from the plane’s fuel tank, spewing fuel that erupted in a fireball.
Passengers were getting off the plane, but Rodrigues was the only person hurt by the fireball outside the plane.
The airport has a good safety record, particularly for its volume.
According to Flight Safety Foundation, on Dec. 3, 2003, two Key Lime Air pilots collided on a runway, breaking the propeller off one plane and part of a wing off the other. There were no injuries.
On April 15, 2003, a Superior Aviation flight from Gunnison flight made a hard landing on its belly when the landing gear had not deployed.
DIA replaced Stapleton International, which had been the city’s main airport since 1929. Stapleton had numerous major crashes, and its perilous location on the city’s eastern residential age was one of the factors that prompted a new airport.
In November 1955, a suitcase full of dynamite exploded over Loveland on a United Airlines Stapleton flight to Portland, killing 44 people aboard. Jack Gilbert Graham was found guilty of planting the bomb to kill his mother. He was executed in 1957.
In November 1987, a Continental Airlines flight crashed on takeoff during a snowstorm from Stapleton, killing 28. In July 1989, a United Airlines flight from Stapleton crashed in a cornfield near Alta, Iowa, on a flight to Chicago, killing 112.
In March 1991, a United Airlines flight approaching Colorado Springs Municipal Airport from Stapleton spun out of control and killed 20 passengers and five crew.
Kevin Simpson: 303-954-1739
