Accident | |
---|---|
Date | May 30, 1947 |
Summary | Loss of control for reasons unknown |
Site | 1.9 miles east of Bainbridge, Maryland |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Douglas C-54B Skymaster |
Operator | Eastern Air Lines |
Registration | NC88814 |
Flight origin | Newark International Airport |
Destination | Miami International Airport |
Occupants | 53 |
Passengers | 49 |
Crew | 4 |
Fatalities | 53 |
Survivors | 0 |
Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 was a domestic flight in the US from Newark to Miami on May 30, 1947. The flight crashed near Bainbridge, Maryland, causing the deaths of all 53 passengers and crew on board in what was then the worst disaster in the history of North American commercial aviation. [1]
Flight 605 departed from Newark International Airport at 17:04 for a scheduled domestic flight to Miami. It climbed to its assigned cruising altitude of 4,000 feet (1,200 m). While flying over Philadelphia, the pilot reported "all is well". [2] At 17:41, people on the ground saw Flight 605 enter a steepening dive and crash 2 miles (3 km) east of Bainbridge. All four crew and 49 passengers died in the crash. At the time, Flight 605 was the deadliest crash in United States aviation history. [3]
The Civil Aviation Board's investigation of the crash determined that the probable cause of this accident was a sudden loss of control, for reasons unknown, resulting in a dive to the ground. [4]
In his book Fate Is the Hunter , Ernest K. Gann suggests that the crash was caused by unporting of the elevators due to a missing hinge bolt, Gann having narrowly avoided a similar fate himself on the same day. [5]
The DC-4 aircraft, serial number 18380, was built in 1944 and was delivered officially as a C-54B Skymaster to the United States Air Force in October 1944. On the same day it was transferred with the designation R5D-2 to the United States Navy. It was leased to Eastern Air Lines on November 29, 1945 as fleet number 708.
Sixty-four years after the tragedy, about 30 people assembled on a hillside near the crash site to dedicate a memorial to the memory of those aboard Flight 605. Included in the assembly on August 14, 2011, were the son of a passenger, a Bainbridge Naval Training Center sailor who responded to the accident, and representatives of the Havre de Grace Police Department whose chief had been the first public safety official to arrive at the accident. Jeanette Nesbit Hillyer and the Stewart Companies, arranged for the placement of the memorial. [6] , [7]
Eastern Air Lines, also colloquially known as Eastern, was a major American airline from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County, Florida.
An aviation accident is defined by the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft, which takes place from the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight until all such persons have disembarked, and in which (a) a person is fatally or seriously injured, (b) the aircraft sustains significant damage or structural failure, or (c) the aircraft goes missing or becomes completely inaccessible. Annex 13 defines an aviation incident as an occurrence, other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft that affects or could affect the safety of operation.
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Cubana de Aviación Flight 493, registration CU-T188, was a Douglas DC-4 en route from Miami, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, on April 25, 1951. A US Navy Beechcraft SNB-1 Kansan, BuNo 39939, was on an instrument training flight in the vicinity of Naval Air Station Key West, Florida, at the same time. The two aircraft collided in mid-air over Key West, killing all 43 aboard both aircraft.
United Air Lines Flight 608 was a Douglas DC-6 airliner, registration NC37510, on a scheduled passenger flight from Los Angeles to Chicago when it crashed at 12:29 pm on October 24, 1947 about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southeast of Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah, United States. None of the five crew members and 47 passengers on board survived. It was the first crash of a DC-6, and at the time, it was the second-deadliest air crash in the United States, surpassed by Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 by only one fatality.
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