Stapleton International Airport - Accidents

Accidents

Several major air crashes involved Stapleton as the origin or destination airport, with four actually occurring at Stapleton.

• On October 6, 1955, United Airlines Flight 409, a Douglas DC-4 propliner, was a scheduled flight departing from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah. The aircraft crashed into Medicine Bow Peak, near Centennial, Wyoming, killing all 66 people on board (63 passengers, 3 crew members.) The victims included five female members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and military personnel. At the time, this was the deadliest airline crash in U.S. commercial aviation history.

• On November 1, 1955, United Airlines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B airliner, exploded over nearby Longmont while en route to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington from Stapleton, killing all 44 persons aboard. John "Jack" Gilbert Graham was found to have planted a dynamite bomb in a suitcase that was loaded onto the plane, to murder his mother in revenge for the way she treated him as a child. He was executed two years after Flight 629 exploded.

• On July 11, 1961, United Airlines Flight 859, a DC-8-12 tail number N8040U, was destroyed after landing. Asymmetric thrust on engines 1 & 2 (left wing) forced a loss of control on the runway. The aircraft struck a maintenance vehicle, killing the driver. In the ensuing disaster, 17 of the DC-8's 122 occupants died.

• On August 7, 1975, Continental Airlines Flight 426 crashed due to windshear after taking off and climbing to 100 feet (30 m) on runway 35L. Nobody was killed in the accident.

• On November 16, 1976, a Texas International DC-9-10 aircraft stalled after takeoff at Stapleton and crashed. The 81 passengers and 5 crewmembers suffered a total of 14 injured, but there were no deaths.

• On December 28, 1978, United Airlines Flight 173, which departed from Stapleton, ran out of fuel while circling near Portland, Oregon, as the crew investigated landing gear problems. The DC-8-61 jetliner's fuel supply was exhausted after the crew decided to "go-around" one more time prior to landing. The plane subsequently crashed in a wooded residential neighborhood southeast of the Portland airport. Ten of the plane's 189 occupants were killed.

• On November 15, 1987, Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a DC-9-14 jetliner bound for Boise, Idaho, crashed on takeoff at Stapleton during a snowstorm. The probable cause of the crash was the failure of the flight crew to have the aircraft de-iced prior to take-off and the over-rotation of the aircraft on take-off. Twenty-eight of the plane's 82 occupants were killed.

• On July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10-10, crash-landed at the Sioux City, Iowa, airport on a flight which originated at Stapleton. Flight 232 experienced a catastrophic engine failure over Alta, Iowa, on a flight to Chicago, Illinois. 112 of the plane's 296 occupants died.

• On March 3, 1991, United Airlines Flight 585 was on final approach to Colorado Springs Municipal Airport from Stapleton when the 737-200 spun out of control. All 20 passengers and 5 crew were killed.