1960 New York air disaster

Infobox Aircraft accident
name = United Airlines Flight 826 Trans World Airlines Flight 266
date = December 16, 1960
type = Mid-air collision
site = Brooklyn and Staten Island New York City, New York
total_fatalities = 134 (including 6 on ground)
plane1_type = Douglas DC-8
plane1_name = "Mainliner Will Rogers"
plane1_operator = United Airlines
plane1_tailnum = airreg|N|8031U|disaster
plane1_origin = Chicago O'Hare Airport
plane1_destination = Idlewild International Airport
plane1_passengers = 77
plane1_crew = 7
plane1_survivors = 0
plane2_type = Lockheed L-1049
plane2_name = "Star of Sicily"
plane2_operator = Trans World Airlines
plane2_tailnumber = airreg|N|6907C|disaster
plane2_origin = Dayton International Airport
plane2_destination = La Guardia Airport
plane2_passengers = 39
plane2_crew = 5
plane2_survivors = 0

The 1960 New York air disaster was a collision on December 16, 1960, between two airliners over Staten Island, New York City, New York, United States, in which one plane crashed into Staten Island and the other airliner crashed into a Brooklyn neighborhood. The crash killed all 84 people aboard Flight 826 and 44 on Flight 266 as well as six people on the ground.

United Airlines Flight 826, "Mainliner Will Rogers", registration N8031U, was a Douglas DC-8 en route from O'Hare Airport in Chicago to New York International (Idlewild) Airport in New York City, New York, on December 16, 1960.

Trans World Airlines Flight 266, "Star of Sicily", registration N6907C, was a Lockheed Super Constellation en route from Dayton and Columbus, Ohio, to New York's LaGuardia Airport.

The two aircraft collided in mid-air in heavy clouds a mile west of Miller Field, a military airfield on Staten Island, at 10:33 a.m. Eastern Time. Weather conditions at the time were light rain and fog (which had been preceded by a snowfall).

According to information from the United's flight recorder (the first time a "black box" had been used to provide extensive details in a crash investigation) the United plane was convert|12|mi|km off course and in 81 seconds dived convert|3600|ft|m a minute and dropped its speed from more than 500 miles per hour to 363 miles per hour when it slammed into the right side of the TWA plane at between 5,250 and convert|5175|ft|m.High Speed Laid to Jet in Crash - New York Times - January 10, 1961]

The collision occurred about a mile west of [http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.568002,-74.099436&spn=0.012584,0.029182&z=15&om=1 Miller Army Field] . The TWA Constellation crashed onto Miller Field, with some sections of the aircraft landing in New York Harbor on the Atlantic Ocean side. As the TWA plane spiraled down it disintegrated, dropping at least one passenger into a tree in the New Dorp neighborhood. It crashed into an empty field at the northwest corner of the field -- although within a few feet of the neighborhood.

The United plane was supposed to have been circling a point called "Preston" off the New Jersey coast, was supposed to have been at 5,000 feet (and not diving down from 8,700 feet) and not traveling more than 240 miles per hour. United was to say the ground beacon was not working (pilots testified on both sides of the issue).

At 10:21 a.m., Flight 826 advised its company radio operator that one of its VOR receivers had stopped working (although they did not notify air traffic controllers of the problem) but it made it difficult to fly on instrument conditions. At 10:25 a.m., air traffic control issued a revised clearance for the flight to shorten its course to the Preston holding point by convert|12|mi|km.

The United Plane overshot the Preston holding point and at 10:33 a.m. it collided with the TWA Constellation.

Following the collision, the crippled United DC-8 careened into the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, setting fire to 10 brownstone apartment buildings, the Pillar of Fire Church, the McCaddin Funeral Home, a Chinese laundry and a delicatessen. Wreckage was spewed over the [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Seventh+Avenue+at+Sterling+Place,+Brooklyn,+New+York&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=26.951033,59.765625&ie=UTF8&ll=40.678409,-73.973694&spn=0.050251,0.11673&z=13&om=1 Seventh Avenue at Sterling Place] intersection, killing six people on the ground, including a sanitation worker shoveling snow and a man selling Christmas trees. [Disaster in Fog - New York Times - December 17, 1960]

Although witnesses speculated at the time that United attempted an emergency landing in Prospect Park or at LaGuardia Airport, there is no evidence that the pilots had control of the DC-8 at any time after the mid-air collision. There was no audible voice radio contact with traffic controllers from either plane after the collision although LaGuardia had begun tracking an incoming fast moving unidentified plane from Preston toward the LaGuardia "Flatbush" outer marker [Excerpts of Tape Conversations at Time of Air Crash - New York Times - December 22, 1960]

The only initial survivor of the tragedy was 11-year-old Stephen Baltz of Wilmette, Illinois, a passenger on the United jet, who was thrown into a snowbank at impact. He later died in Park Slope's New York Methodist Hospital a few blocks from the crash. Baltz told rescuers that moments before the collision he had looked out the window at the snow falling on the city.

:"It looked like a picture out of a fairy book. It was a beautiful sight." [Disaster in Fog - New York Times - December 17, 1960]

Pictures of Baltz appeared on many front pages around the world such as the Syracuse Post-Standard repeating a story from the Associated Press in which he expressed concern about his mother who was waiting for him at the airport. He gave the only description of the crash:

:"I heard a big noise while we were flying. The last thing I remember was the plane falling." [Lone Survivor Worried About His Mother - Associated Press via Syracuse Post-Standard - December 17, 1960]

With a death toll of 134, the accident was the deadliest U.S. commercial aviation disaster at the time, topping the 1956 midair collision between United Airlines Flight 718 and Trans World Airlines Flight 2 over Arizona's Grand Canyon that killed 128.

Filmmaker and critic Hollis Frampton was scheduled to be on the flight, but decided to leave the next day in order to see a retrospective of the work of Edward Weston in Minneapolis; he said of this decision that he was "never...able to decide whether Weston tried to kill me, or saved my life." [ Frampton, Hollis. "Impromptus on Edward Weston: Everything in Its Place." "October" 5 (Summer 1978): 48-69. ]

United has not retired the use of 826 as a flight number. However, as of October 2006 no United flights currently carry the designation. The most recent route of United Flight 826 was on a San Francisco to Los Angeles route, and was last used on September 5, 2006.

United had named the ill-fated DC-8 after well known American entertainer Will Rogers. Along with Wiley Post he was killed in a plane crash near Barrow, Alaska in 1935.

Within two months there would be two more major air disasters involving Idlewild Airport.

On January 19, 1961, an Aeronaves de Mexico DC-8 crashed on takeoff into Rockaway Beach Boulevard from Idlewild in a snow storm killing four – although 102 of the 106 passengers and crew escaped.

On January 28, 1961, an American Airlines Boeing 707 Flight 1502 (Flagship Oklahoma) from Idlewild on a training mission nosedived 300 yards off Atlantic coast at Napeague, New York killing all six aboard.

ee also

*List of notable accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft

Footnotes

References

* [http://psreader.com/article44.html Pillar of Fire: Recalling the Day the Sky Fell, December 16, 1960] by Nathaniel Altman, from the Park Slope Reader
* [http://dotlibrary1.specialcollection.net/scripts/ws.dll?browse&rn=719%22 Civil Aeronautics Board Aircraft Accident Report on the collision] from the Department of Transport's Special Collections
* [http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19601216-0&lang=en Aviation Safety Network report on Flight 826]
* [http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19601216-1&lang=en Aviation Safety Network report on Flight 266]
* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895134,00.html Death in the Air] , "Time", December 26, 1960.
* [http://www.thesmokinggun.com/tsgtv/index.html?id=TSGV5-38&link=TSGTVshlk News video of crash] , TheSmokingGun.com