1965 Carmel mid-air collision

Last updated
TWA Flight 42
Eastern Air Lines Flight 853
Accident
DateDecember 4, 1965 (1965-12-04)
Summary Mid-air collision due to optical illusion and pilot error
Site Carmel, New York, United States
Total fatalities4
Total injuries50
Total survivors108
First aircraft
Boeing 707-131B, Trans World Airlines (TWA) JP7675834.jpg
The Trans World Airlines Boeing 707 involved in the accident
Type Boeing 707-131B
Operator Trans World Airlines
IATA flight No.TW
ICAO flight No.TWA
Call signTWA 42
Registration N748TW
Flight origin San Francisco International Airport, California, United States
Destination John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, United States
Occupants58
Passengers51
Crew7
Fatalities0
Injuries1
Survivors58
Second aircraft
Lockheed 1049H N6931C (4815952906).jpg
A Lockheed Super Constellation similar to the accident aircraft.
Type Lockheed L-1049C Super Constellation
Operator Eastern Air Lines
IATA flight No.EA853
ICAO flight No.EAL853
Call signEASTERN 853
RegistrationN6218C
Flight origin Boston Logan International Airport, Massachusetts, United States
Destination Newark International Airport, New Jersey, United States
Occupants54
Passengers49
Crew5
Fatalities4
Injuries49
Survivors50

The 1965 Carmel mid-air collision occurred on December 4, 1965, when Eastern Air Lines Flight 853 (N6218C), a Lockheed Super Constellation en route from Boston Logan International Airport to Newark International Airport, collided in mid-air with Trans World Airlines Flight 42 (N748TW), a Boeing 707-131B en route from San Francisco International Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport, over Carmel, New York, United States. [1] [2]

Contents

TWA Flight 42 made an emergency landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport, while Eastern Air Lines Flight 853 was forced to make a crash landing on Hunt Mountain in North Salem, New York. Three passengers died, plus the Constellation's pilot, Captain Charles J. White, who had returned to the aircraft's cabin to help the last passenger. [3]

Aircraft and crews

Trans World Airlines Flight 42, registration N748TW, was a Boeing 707-131B carrying 51 passengers and seven crewmembers from San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens. The crew consisted of Captain Thomas H. Carroll (age 45), First Officer Leo M. Smith (42), Flight Engineer Ernest V. Hall (41) and four stewardesses. Captain Carroll was a highly experienced pilot, having accumulated 18,842 flight hours, of which 1,867 were in the 707. First Officer Smith had accumulated 12,248 flight hours, of which 2,607 were in the 707. Flight Engineer Hall had accumulated 11,717 flight hours, of which 5:52 were in the 707.

Eastern Air Lines Flight 853, registration N6218C, was a Super Constellation carrying 49 passengers and five crew members from Logan International Airport in Boston to Newark International Airport (now Newark Liberty International Airport) in Newark. The crew consisted of Captain Charles J. White (age 42), First Officer Roger I. Holt Jr. (34), Flight Engineer Emile P. Greenway (27) and two stewardesses. Captain White had accumulated 11,508 flight hours, 1,947 of which were in the Constellation. First Officer Holt had accumulated 8,090 flight hours, of which 899 were on the Constellation. Flight Engineer Greenway had accumulated 1,011 flight hours, of which 726 were in the Constellation. [4]

Accident

The TWA Boeing 707 and the Eastern Air Lines Constellation approached the Carmel VORTAC at the same time. As the Constellation emerged from a cloud puff, First Officer Roger I. Holt Jr. saw the Boeing in his right side window at the 2 o'clock position. The aircraft appeared to be converging rapidly at the same altitude. Holt shouted, "Look out," placed his hands on the control wheel, and made a rapid application of up elevator simultaneously with Captain White, causing crew members and passengers to be forced down into their seats. [3]

TWA Flight 42

Aboard the Boeing, the crew was preparing for arrival at JFK International, flying in clear air above an overcast sky with good visibility as they approached Carmel. The aircraft was being flown on autopilot with altitude-hold engaged, and the pilot, Capt. Thomas H. Carroll, had his left hand on the control yoke. On seeing an aircraft at his 10 o'clock position on what appeared to be a collision course, he immediately disengaged the autopilot, put the wheel hard over to the right, and pulled back on the yoke. His copilot, First Officer Leo M. Smith, also grabbed the controls and acted together with him. The aircraft rolled to the right and it became apparent that this maneuver would not allow the two aircraft to pass clear of each other, so Carroll and Smith attempted to reverse the wheel to the left and pushed on the yoke. Before the aircraft could react to the control reversal, two shocks were felt and the Boeing entered a steep dive; the Boeing's left wing had struck the tail of the Constellation and both aircraft were out of control. [4]

The Boeing crew recovered from the dive, declared an emergency with New York Center, and received the first of many vectors to JFK International. They performed a damage assessment and asked that crash and fire equipment stand by. The Boeing was vectored south of JFK International where it made a wide 360 degree turn to check that the landing gear was fully down and to determine how the airplane would fly at approach speeds, and made a safe landing on Runway 31L at 1640. [4] The only injury was a bloody nose suffered by a flight attendant who was knocked off her feet in the collision.

Eastern Air Lines Flight 853

Following the collision, the Eastern Air Lines Constellation continued to climb. The crew felt the aircraft shudder and begin a left-turning dive back into the clouds. There was no response from the controls or trim tabs, but the crew discovered that a degree of control was available by adjusting the throttles. The aircraft descended through solid clouds and a recovery was made below the clouds using throttles only. Several zooms were then made back into the clouds as the pilots attempted to gain control of their aircraft. [4]

The pilots discovered a throttle setting that would maintain a descent in level attitude, with airspeed maintained between 125 kn (232 km/h; 144 mph) and 140 kn (260 km/h; 160 mph); the nose rose when power was increased and fell when power was decreased. Their rate of descent could be maintained at approximately 500 ft (150 m) per minute. [4]

It was obvious to the pilots that the Constellation was badly damaged and that they needed to make an emergency landing. However, they were over mainly wooded terrain on the Connecticut-New York border, and the few fields were surrounded by stone walls, sited on sloping terrain, and not large enough. Captain White advised the passengers that the aircraft was out of control, and that a crash landing would be made. [4]

The aircraft descended on a southwest heading over Danbury Municipal Airport, Connecticut at an altitude of 2,000 feet. Around 2 mi (3.2 km) ahead, White spotted a pasture halfway up Hunt Mountain, a 900 ft (270 m) ridge running perpendicular to the Constellation's flightpath. He aligned the aircraft using asymmetric thrust, told passengers to brace themselves, and descended into the upward-sloping hillside with wheels and flaps retracted. At the last moment he jammed the throttles forward to pitch up the aircraft's nose, letting the Constellation pancake into the 15-percent slope. [4]

The crash-landing site was 4.2 mi (6.8 km) north of an area where numerous parts from both aircraft were later found by investigators. The first impact was on a tree that was found broken 46 ft (14 m) above the ground. 250 ft (76 m) farther on, the left wing contacted another tree, and was separated from the aircraft. The fuselage contacted the ground at the same point, and the aircraft came to rest on the slope. The fuselage had been broken into three pieces, and all the engines had been separated from their nacelles. [4]

The cockpit and cabin crews survived the crash landing and worked both inside and outside the broken fuselage parts to evacuate the survivors from the wreckage, which was on fire. Volunteer firemen from North Salem, Ridgefield, Connecticut, and nearby communities extinguished the fire and transported the survivors to hospitals at Danbury, Connecticut; Mount Kisco, New York; and Carmel, New York, where two passengers later died of their injuries. Firefighters later discovered two bodies in the fuselage - that of a male passenger in the forward section, whose seatbelt jammed, and that of Captain White, who had returned to the cabin to help the passenger. Both had died from smoke inhalation. [3]

Notable passengers

Investigation

Conclusions

Misjudgment of altitude separation by the crew of EA 853 because of an optical illusion created by the up-slope effect of cloud tops resulted in an evasive maneuver and a reactive evasive maneuver by the TWA 42 crew. [1] [4]

Related Research Articles

Eastern Air Lines was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County, Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tenerife airport disaster</span> 1977 runway collision

The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on 27 March 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The accident occurred when KLM Flight 4805 initiated its takeoff run in dense fog, colliding with the rear of Pan Am Flight 1736 still on the runway. The impact and the resulting fire killed all 248 people on board the KLM plane and 335 of the 396 people on board the Pan Am plane, with only 61 survivors in the front section of the latter aircraft. With a total of 583 fatalities, the disaster is the deadliest accident in aviation history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182</span> 1978 mid-air collision over San Diego

Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 was a scheduled flight on September 25, 1978, by Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA), from Sacramento to San Diego (SAN), with a stopover at Los Angeles (LAX). The aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 727-214, collided mid-air with a private Cessna 172 over San Diego, California. It was Pacific Southwest Airlines' first fatal accident, and it remains the deadliest air disaster in California history. At the time, it was the deadliest air crash to occur in the United States, and remained so until the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in May 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1960 New York mid-air collision</span> Aviation disaster in New York City

On December 16, 1960, a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 bound for Idlewild Airport in New York City collided in midair with a TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation descending toward LaGuardia Airport. The Constellation crashed on Miller Field in Staten Island and the DC-8 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, killing all 128 aboard the two aircraft and six people on the ground. The accident was the world's deadliest aviation disaster at the time, and remains the deadliest accident in the history of United Airlines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Air China Flight 129</span> 2002 aviation accident in South Korea

Air China Flight 129 (CCA129/CA129) was a scheduled international passenger flight, operated by Air China, from Beijing Capital International Airport to Gimhae International Airport in Busan. On 15 April 2002, the aircraft on this route, a Boeing 767-200ER, crashed into a hill near the airport, killing 129 of the 166 people on board.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qantas Flight 1</span> 1999 landing in Bangkok with minor injuries

Qantas 1 is a Qantas passenger flight between Sydney and London. On 23 September 1999, the aircraft operating the QF1 that had departed from Sydney that day was involved in a runway overrun accident at Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok as it was landing for a stopover.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Airlines Flight 383 (1965)</span> 1965 aviation accident in the United States

American Airlines Flight 383 was a nonstop flight from New York City to Cincinnati on November 8, 1965. The aircraft was a Boeing 727, with 57 passengers, and 5 crew on board. The aircraft crashed on final approach to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport located in Hebron, Kentucky, United States. Only three passengers and one flight attendant survived the accident.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TWA Flight 159</span> 1967 aviation accident

Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 159 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from New York City to Los Angeles, California, with a stopover in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Kentucky, that crashed after an aborted takeoff from Cincinnati on November 6, 1967. The Boeing 707 attempted to abort takeoff when the copilot became concerned that the aircraft had collided with a disabled DC-9 on the runway. The aircraft overran the runway, struck an embankment and caught fire. One passenger died as a result of the accident.

The article describes accidents and incidents on Korean Air and its predecessor companies Korean National Airlines and Korean Air Lines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision</span> Mid-air collision on June 30, 1956 over the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon mid-air collision occurred in the western United States on June 30, 1956, when a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 struck a Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation over Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. The first plane fell into the canyon while the other slammed into a rock face. All 128 on board both airplanes perished, making it the first commercial airline incident to exceed one hundred fatalities. The airplanes had departed Los Angeles International Airport minutes apart from each other and headed for Chicago and Kansas City, respectively. The collision took place in uncontrolled airspace, where it was the pilots' responsibility to maintain separation. This highlighted the antiquated state of air traffic control, which became the focus of major aviation reforms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pan Am Flight 806</span> 1974 aviation accident

Pan Am Flight 806 was an international scheduled flight from Auckland, New Zealand, to Los Angeles, California, with intermediate stops at Pago Pago, American Samoa and Honolulu, Hawaii. On January 30, 1974, the Boeing 707 Clipper Radiant crashed on approach to Pago Pago International Airport, killing 87 passengers and ten crew members.

Throughout a normal flight, a pilot controls an aircraft through the use of flight controls including maintaining straight and level flight, as well as turns, climbing, and descending. Some controls, such as a "yoke" or "stick" move and adjust the control surfaces which affects the aircraft's attitude in the three axes of pitch, roll, and yaw. Other controls include those for adjusting wing characteristics and those that control the power or thrust of the propulsion systems. The loss of primary control systems in any phase of flight is an emergency. Aircraft are not designed to be flown under such circumstances; however, some pilots faced with such an emergency have had limited success flying and landing aircraft with disabled controls.

References

  1. 1 2 "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 707-131B N748TW New York, NY". Aviation Safety Network.
  2. ↑ "ASN Aircraft accident Lockheed L-1049C Super Constellation N6218C North Salem, NY". Aviation Safety Network.
  3. 1 2 3 Aarons, Richard A. (3 May 2004). "TWA Flight 42 - The Unexpected - When Experience and Airmanship Really Counts". International Aviation Safety Association. Archived from the original on 17 April 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 C. S. Murphy, R. T. Murphy, G. J. Minetti, W. Gillilland, and J. G. Adams for the Civil Aeronautics Board. Aviation Accident Report: 1965 Carmel mid-air collision (1966)
  5. ↑ Thurston, Robert N, "Historical note: Warren P. Mason (1900-1986) physicist, engineer, inventor, author, teacher", IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, vol. 41, no. 4, p. 426, July 1994.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.