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Continental plane slides off runway in Denver, catches fire

by Jeffrey White (RSS feed) on Dec 21st 2008 at 8:00AM

A Continental 737 aircraft taking off from Denver yesterday either slid or crashed, according to reports, into a ravine off the runway before catching fire, injuring nearly 40 people.

The Associated Press is reporting that the 107 passengers on board the Houston-bound flight were evacuated via emergency slides. Thirty-seven were rushed to area hospitals with a variety of injuries, none of which are being reported as life-threatening.

There were no deaths in the incident.

Emergency responders on the ground put out the fire quickly.

Authorities are not saying what caused the botched take-off, though a National Transportation Safety Board team is reportedly heading to Denver to investigate the incident.

All Continental Airlines says is the aircraft "exited" the runway prior to take-off. There are conflicting reports that the plane actually had taken off before crashing into the ravine.

The incident shut a part of Denver International down for approximately 45 minutes.

Filed under: Airlines

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Virg Lovett Dec 21st 2008 4:42PM

Hey Jeffrey, thanks for the report on the plane crash in Denver but could you please post a picture of the correct type of aircraft...the picture is not of a Boeing 737 but of a MD-80 from a Houston incident. I don't mean to split hairs but as a blogger your not tied up by editors that want you to rush the story to get it out like the big news services do. This is exactly what they do all the time when reporting an accident involving an airplane. They show a picture of anything but reference something else and that is confusing to folks who follow these things and it is very frustrating. Small note on the picture....I worked for Continental and I worked this incident so it's very familiar to me. Keep up the blogging otherwise!!!

Virgil
http://blkav8tor2003.blogspot.com/

Jeffrey Dec 22nd 2008 4:32AM

Small nitpick to the above comment: It appears, from looking at the info on the picture page in question, and looking up the flight number elsewhere, that this isn't an MD-80 but rather a DC-9. To be fair, the MD-80 is a lengthened redesign of the DC-9, so the planes look pretty similar, but yeah, definitely not a Boeing 737.

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