New York City plane collision
| New York City plane collision | |
|---|---|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Airplane collision in the air |
| place | Staten Island and Brooklyn , New York City |
| date | December 16, 1960 |
| Fatalities | 134 (including 6 on the ground) |
| Injured | 0 |
| 1. Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Douglas DC-8 |
| operator | United Air Lines |
| Mark | N8013U |
| Surname | Mainliner Will Rogers |
| Passengers | 77 |
| crew | 7th |
| Survivors | 0 |
| 2. Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Lockheed L-1049 |
| operator | Trans World Airlines |
| Mark | N6907C |
| Surname | Star of Sicily |
| Passengers | 39 |
| crew | 5 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
In the aircraft collision of New York City on Friday, December 16, 1960 collided over Staten Iceland ( New York City ), a Lockheed Super Constellation of TWA , ( flight number TW266) with a Douglas DC-8 of United Air Lines (flight number UA826) . Parts of the TWA Constellation fell on Miller Army Airfield near New Dorp (Staten Island); the caught fire DC-8 crashed in the residential area of Park Slope ( Brooklyn ) about 19 km away .
With 134 casualties (all 128 occupants of both planes and six people in Brooklyn) it was the worst airplane accident in the United States at the time . When determining the course of the accident, the recordings of a flight recorder on board the DC-8 were evaluated for the first time .
Flight routes
The DC-8 took off with 77 passengers and seven crew members in the morning at 9:11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) from Chicago O'Hare Airport with destination New York International (Idlewild) Airport .
The Super Constellation came from Dayton International Airport and was supposed to land at New York 's La Guardia Airport. After the stopover in Columbus, Ohio , the Constellation took off there at 9 a.m. EST with 39 passengers and five crew members.
Aircraft
The aircraft used on United Air Lines Flight 826 was named Mainliner Will Rogers with aircraft registration N8013U. The four - engine Douglas DC-8 (serial number 45290/22) built in 1959 had 2434 operating hours.
The four-engine fan plane Star of Sicily with the registration number N6907C was delivered to Trans World Airlines in 1952. The Lockheed Super Constellation L-1049 (serial number 4021) had been in operation for 21,555 hours until the accident.
Course of events
At 10:32 a.m. EST, the TWA machine at flight level 065 (6,500 feet , corresponds to approx. 2000 meters) was instructed by New York air traffic control to change course to 150 degrees in the southeast at VOR Linden and then over Staten Island to begin the approach to runway 04 at La Guardia Airport. There should be a descent to FL 050 (approx. 1500 meters).
Shortly beforehand at 10:25 am EST, New York air traffic control offered United Flight 826, which was still at FL 140 (approx. 4,300 m), the rest of the flight route to the navigation point "Preston Intersection " at Laurence before landing at Idlewild Airport Shorten Harbor, New Jersey by 11 miles (20 kilometers) while also dropping to FL 50. From then on, the flight APP (Approach Control) should take over Idlewild. If the DC-8 has not yet issued a landing clearance, the DC-8 should go into a holding loop at Preston . UA 826 informed APP Idlewild at 10:33 a.m. that it was flying north-east on FL 50 to Preston. In fact, the machine had already exceeded this flight clearance limit (clearance) by approximately 11 miles and was over the coast of Staten Island. 30 seconds later, the right external engine of the DC-8 collided with the fuselage of the TWA machine; the United jet lost part of the right wing with the engine .
The TWA Constellation broke into several parts, the majority of which fell on a disused site ( Miller Army Airfield ) of the US Army . There were no victims on the ground. The United aircraft caught fire and continued to fly 10 miles northeast with the remaining three engines and hit the Sterling Place / Seventh Avenue area of Park Slope, Brooklyn. The church "Pillar of Fire" (Sterling Place 123) was completely destroyed. Several buildings were severely damaged on the upper floors. Six people died on the ground.
Web links
- Aircraft Accident data and report N8013U in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
- Aircraft Accident data and report N6907C in the Aviation Safety Network (English)
- Aircraft accident report Accident report of June 18, 1962 by the US Civil Aeronautics Board (pdf; 2.2 MB)
- New York Times: A Tragedy Over New York display of flight routes.
- Dailymail.uk: Photos of the accident sites
- New York Mid-Air Collision on youtube
Coordinates: 40 ° 40 ′ 37.9 " N , 73 ° 58 ′ 26.4" W.