DIA Pilot Recalls ‘Massive Gust Of Wind’ Before Crash

DENVER(AP) – Safety investigators say the pilot of Continental Airlines Flight 1404 told them the airliner was building up speed on takeoff last December when it suddenly veered to the left off a Denver runway as if hit by a “massive gust of wind.”

The pilot’s interview is among evidence made public Friday in the National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the Dec. 20 accident.

Aviation safety experts have suggested that a powerful crosswind may have weather-vaned the Boeing 737-500, a phenomenon in which wind pushes an airliner’s tail hard enough to swing its nose into the wind, like a weather vane.

The plane carrying 110 passengers rumbled across a frozen field before it broke apart and caught fire. Thirty-seven people were injured.