NTSB CAROL · Event
Event DCA19CA169
Registry · N75436
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
BOEING 737-924ER
Year of manufacture
2009 · 10 years old at event
Engine
CFM INTL CFM56-7B26/3
Seats / Engines
191 seats · 2 engines
Last airworthiness date
20260119
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S AA2BC5
Registrant of record
UNITED AIRLINES INC
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
the early initiation of the landing flare that resulted in a high pitch attitude and tailstrike.
Factual narrative
On June 9, 2019, about 1555 MDT, United Airlines flight 401, a B737-924ER, N75436, experienced a tailstrike during landing at Denver International Airport (DEN), Denver, Colorado. There were no injuries to the 184 passengers and crew onboard. The airplane received substantial damage. The regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight was operating under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 from Reno International Airport (RNO), Reno, Nevada to DEN. The first officer (FO) was the pilot flying and the captain was the pilot monitoring. During short final, the FO noticed he was about 5 knots fast, and about 50 feet above the runway, started to slowly reduce power and start the landing flare. At touchdown the airplane bounced. The FO was about to advance throttles for a go-around, when the captain took control and continued the landing after a second bounce. During the post flight walk around, the flight crew observed that the lower aft fuselage had sustained damaged due to a tailstrike. Maintenance examination of the airplane found that the tailskid cartridge was compressed and there was substantial damage to the fuselage skin, frames, stringer clips and shear ties between fuselage station 827 to 907 and deformed stringers 27L and 27R. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- C Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Copilot
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Flight crew
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2019_DCA19CA169.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around, maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Technical Memorandum (TM)
A preliminary study of a wake vortex encounter hazard boundary for a B737-100 airplane
A preliminary batch simulation study was conducted to define the wake decay required for a Boeing 737-100 airplane to safely encounter a Boeing 727 wake and land.
- NASA NTRS 2018 · Other
A Numerical Simulation Study to Develop an Acceptable Wake Encounter Boundary for a B737-100 Airplane
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is conducting research with the goal of enabling safe improvements in the capacity of the nation's air transportation system.
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper
A Training Study to Improve Monitoring During A Go-Around
As part of an FAA program to improve go-around (GA) safety, we were asked to determine if we could improve the performance of the Pilot Monitoring (PM) during a GA maneuver.
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Validation of Proposed Go-Around Criteria Under Various Environmental Conditions
This paper evaluates the effects of environmental conditions on touchdown performance under varying approach states and validates proposed go-around criteria developed using data from a previously con…
- NASA NTRS 2019 · Conference Paper
Pilot Evaluation of Proposed Go-Around Criteria for Transport Category Aircraft
The primary objective of this study was to capture pilot feedback and decision-making with regard to proposed, hypothetical, go-around criteria that were developed based on previous research.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2026 · Journal article (IJAAA)
From Reactive to Predictive: A hybrid Trust-Mediated Adoption Framework for Data-Driven Maintenance in Distributed-Authority Aviation Environments
Modern aviation maintenance operates within increasingly data-intensive technological environments, yet the operational integration of predictive maintenance into routine decision-making remains incon…
Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗