He had 5,063 flight hours, with 4,327 of them on the Boeing 727. winds blew ferociously over the city. Aviation consultant Bennie Benitez said there were many positive safety elements that came out of 401, like flash lights on all planes. I have the radar on standby in case I need it, I can get it later. . standby." [1]:2. He was administering a required flight check on Geurin. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. On Tuesday June 24, 1975, Flight 66 was operated using a Boeing 727 trijet, registration number N8845E . "Fortunate," survivor and former Domino Sugar executive Charles Weaver of Summerville said during an interview this week. Eastern 66 acknowledged the clearance at 1600:54.5, "Okay, we'll let your know about the conditions." Truth is, I didn't realize just how important this information was until the next day when it saved my life and that of my crew. If mathematical, chemical, physical and other formulas are not displayed correctly on this page, please useFirefox or Safari, A Boeing 727-200 operated by Eastern Air Lines, similar to the accident aircraft. Flight 212 left Charleston at 7 a.m. traveling almost due north to Charlotte's Douglas Municipal Airport and a brief stop ahead of the plane's ultimate goal, Chicago. . That mishap, however was blamed on "destabilizing wind changes." It would be North Carolina's second-worst air disaster, behind the 82 lives lost in a mid-air collision seven years earlier over Hendersonville. . Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. N8453 then was passing through 400 feet, and its rate of descent increased from an average of about 675 feet per minute (fpm) to 1,500 fpm. The flight engineer was 31-year-old Gary M. Geurin, who had been with Eastern Air Lines since 1968 and had 3,910 flight hours, 3,123 of them on the Boeing 727. which runs along the north boundry of Kennedy Airport would be clogged with rush-hour traffic. After the aircraft stopped moving, Weaver found himself upside down and disoriented, looking at the ground below him. Cockpit chatter showed the crew seemed at ease, discussing school desegregation, politics and the increasing price of gasoline. It was a Wednesday and many Charleston business professionals were on board for the one-hour flight, as opposed to several hours by car. Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 was a regularly scheduled flight from New Orleans to New York City that crashed on June 24, 1975 while on approach to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing 113 of the 124 people on board. :3. The crash of Flight 66 was attributed to the severe conditions created by the thunderstorm on the landing site. A partial list of others who died in the crash included Rear Adm. Charles W. Cummings, who died less than a week after his appointment as commandant of the Sixth Naval District; Wayne Seal, news director at WCIV-TV and the former press secretary to Gov. In the aftermath of the crash, Rockaway Boulevard was closed for some time. At 1552:43, the controller transmitted, "All aircraft this frequency, we just went IFR with 2 miles very light rain showers and haze. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Her sister, Tina, 7, and her father were taken in the mobile unit on later trips. "We prayed a lot," said Nancy. There's so many good things, positive things came out of Flight 401, that this plane crash can never happen again with all the safety features put on it, said Infantino. Joseph DiPiazza of Clifton, N.J., Dispenza's brother-in-law, said: "Doctors told me that he wasn't sick enough to be transferred, but the doctors wanted him to be near his daughters.". I've been telling this story for thirty years now, perhaps with a tinge of regret. I was startled to see him and asked him, Where in hell did you come from He said he just landed with Jack Bliss and that Eastern Airlines had crashed behind them. Richard M. Page, president of Oil Mop Incorporated, a company that developed technology for cleaning up oil spills. The NTSB also concluded that failure of either air traffic controllers or the flight crew to abort the landing, given the severe weather conditions, also contributed to the crash: Contributing to the accident was the continued use of runway 22L when it should have become evident to both air traffic control personnel and the flight crew that a severe weather hazard existed along the approach path. The sound of impact was recorded at 1605:11.4. At 1603:12.4, the flight established communications with Kennedy tower local controller and reported that they were, "outer marker, inbound. Eastern 66 acknowledged the transmission. *REUPLOAD*Please support this channel by following me on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/allecibayEastern Air Lines Flight 66 was a regularly scheduled flight. 148 Williman Street Following is a tentative list of passengers on Flight 66, issued by Eastern Airlines: ANDRE, M. ANDRE, Mrs. ALEXANDRIDIS ABBATE, D. ALBAN, J. AHMED, A. BERLIND BERLIND, Mrs. BERLINDchild. civic and personal contributions made by these Louisianans were many. He was a former president of the New Orleans Board of Trade. Access the best of Getty Images with our simple subscription plan. No one is reported to have survived after a China Eastern Airlines flight tragically crashed in the mountains of southern China on Monday, according to multiple outlets. He observed airspeed fluctuations of 15 to 30 kn and at 300 feet he had to apply almost maximum thrust to arrest his descent and to strive to maintain 140 kn on his inertial navigation system groundspeed indicator. "Now, all we've got to do is find the airport," veteran pilot J.E. Flight attendants Robert Hoefler, 29 (1. New York Daily News coverage of an airplane crash at JFK airport from Wednesday June 25, 1975. Peter D., second officer supervisor, See the article in its original context from. we're VFR with a 5-mile, light, very light rain shower with haze, altimeter check 30.13. . All our content comes from Wikipedia and under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. On Tuesday June 24, 1975, Flight 66 was operated using a Boeing 727 trijet, registration number N8845E. Multiple legal claims up to $21.5 million would follow. Plane went down in a thunderstorm, smashing across Rockaway Blvd., and leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. [1]:1, Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from New Orleans, Louisiana's New Orleans International Airport (renamed in 2001 to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Jamaica, Queens, New York. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/25/archives/list-of-passengers-and-crew-on-flight-66.html. towards a row of lights. However, despite these reports, On the morning of June 24, 1975, New York City (NYC) was preparing All rights reserved. Survivors. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Sure, I warn you when I am giving you my personal techniques, but you should always follow your primary guidance (aircraft manuals, government regulations, etc.) The flight crew's delayed recognition and correction of the high descent rate were probably associated with their reliance upon visual cues rather than on flight instrument reference. Survivors. A Boeing 727 operated by Eastern Air Lines, similar to the incident aircraft The flight departed from Moisant Field at 13:19 Eastern Daylight Time with 124 people on board, including 116 passengers and 8 crew. At 1602:58.7, Eastern 66 reported over the OM, and the final vector controller cleared the flight to contact the Kennedy tower. document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = "© " + html; :1 Fujita proposed new methods of detecting and identifying downbursts, including installation of additional weather monitoring equipment at the approach ends of active runways, and also proposed development of new procedures for immediately communicating downburst detection to incoming aircraft. The fuselage broke open just behind the wings causing the aircraft to stop with the tail section resting on the runway. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. I only caught the tail end of the TV show, I never caught his name or the airline he was flying for. At 1604:54.7, the captain again said, "Stay on the gauges," and the first officer replied, "I'm with it." At 1601:49.5, the first officer, who was flying the aircraft called for completion of the final checklist. Eastern Airlines Flight 66, crashed on swamp road 1975 Posted on January 18, 2013 by mikewright4377 back in 1975, Eastern Airlines Flight 66 crashed on approach to jfk airport during a terrible storm. :2 Because of the deteriorating weather, one of the crew members checked the weather at LaGuardia Airport in Flushing, Queens, the flight's alternate airport. . J. But Hoefler was too stunned to answer. The explosion caused debris to fly in the surrounding area Less than two years later, Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 crashed at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, killing 113 at the time, the largest U.S. death toll in the crash of a single. But in May he told graduates of MUSC that losing a role model so young meant his father's godlike image was "trapped in amber.". The first officer was 34-year-old William Eberhart, who had been with Eastern Air Lines for nearly nine years. After the DC-8, an Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 landing on the same runway nearly crashed. :1, Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from New Orleans, Louisiana's New Orleans International Airport (renamed in 2001 to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Jamaica, Queens, New York. The flight crew's delayed recognition and correction of the high descent rate were probably associated with their reliance upon visual cues rather than on flight instrument reference. This was how Mary Ellen Mooney, 28, a stewardess aboard the ill-fated Eastern Airlines 727 jet that crashed at Kennedy Airport yesterday afternoon, described her ordeal from her bed in long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center. Expect vectors to an ILS runway 22L, landing runway 22L, departures are off 22R.". . (New York Daily News). I was sitting in our operations office when his copilot walked in and sat down next to me. Thirteen people survived the initial impact, including the co-pilot and one flight attendant who walked away with no serious injuries; however, three more ultimately died from severe burn injuries. The aircraft continued its descent until it began striking the approach lights approximately 2,400 feet (730m) from the threshold of the runway. Fujita identified "cells of intense downdrafts" during the storm that caused aircraft flying through them "considerable difficulties in landing". All three of the decedents were passengers aboard Eastern Airlines Flight 66 en route from New Orleans to New York City on June 24, 1975, and all *637 three perished when the aircraft crashed on approach to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Peter H. Walmsley, vice president of the Kaivar Corporation, which manufactures photographic reproduction systems. At 1559:19, the final vector controller transmitted a message to all aircraft on his frequency that "a severe wind shift" had been reported on the final approach and that he would report more information shortly. The plane descended out of the sky as pilots were distracted over a landing gear warning light. The concept of downbursts was not yet understood when Flight 66 crashed. However, the crashes of Pan Am Flight 759 in 1982 and Delta Air Lines Flight 191 in 1985 prompted the aviation community to re-evaluate and ultimately accept Fujita's theory and to begin researching downburst/microburst detection and avoidance systems in earnest. All but 11 people perished in the crash. ), and Mary Ellen Mooney, 28, smile at each other in Long Island Jewish Hospital, Far Rockaway, Queens. :2 Although communications on the frequency continued to report deteriorating weather, Flight 66 continued on its approach to Runway 22L.