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 Army 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 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.
The Douglas C-54 Skymaster is a four-engined transport aircraft used by the United States Army Air Forces in World War II and the Korean War. Like the Douglas C-47 Skytrain derived from the DC-3, the C-54 Skymaster was derived from a civilian airliner, the Douglas DC-4. Besides transport of cargo, the C-54 also carried presidents, prime ministers, and military staff. Dozens of variants of the C-54 were employed in a wide variety of non-combat roles such as air-sea rescue, scientific and military research, and missile tracking and recovery. During the Berlin Airlift it hauled coal and food supplies to West Berlin. After the Korean War it continued to be used for military and civilian uses by more than 30 countries. It was one of the first aircraft to carry the President of the United States, the first being President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.
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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1960.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1968.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1969.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1970.
Presque Isle International Airport, formally Northern Maine Regional Airport at Presque Isle, is a mile northwest of Presque Isle, in Aroostook County, Maine, United States. It serves the residents of Presque Isle and a vast area of northern Maine and northwestern New Brunswick. Airline flights to Newark Liberty International Airport are subsidized by the federal government's Essential Air Service program at a cost of $3,892,174.
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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.
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