1960 New York mid-air collision

United Airlines Flight 826 was a flight that collided with TWA Flight 266 on December 16, 1960. No one survived. The accident became known as the Park Slope plane crash or the Miller Field crash, named after the two crash sites. The accident was the first hull loss and the first fatal accident involving a Douglas DC-8.

Aircrafts and crews
United Airlines Flight 826, Mainliner Will Rogers, registration N8013U, was a DC-8-11. It carried 77 passengers and seven crew members. It was travelling from O'Hare International Airport to Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) in Queens. The crew was captain Robert Sawyer (age 46), first officer Robert Fiebing (40), flight engineer Richard Pruitt (30) and four stewardesses.

Trans World Airlines Flight 266, Star of Sicily, registration N6907C, was a Super Constellation. It carried 39 passengers and five crew members. It was travelling from Dayton and Columbus, Ohio to LaGuardia Airport in Queens. The crew was captain David Wollam (age 39), first officer Dean Bowen (32), flight engineer LeRoy Rosenthal (30) and two stewardesses.

Initial survivor
There was a initial survivor in the accident, Stephen Baltz, an 11-year-old boy from Wilmette, Illinois. He was travelling alone on Flight 826 to spend Christmas with his relatives. He was thrown from the plane into the snowbank, where the snow helped to put out the fire on his clothes. Although he was alive and conscious, he was severely burned and had breathed in burning fuel. Baltz died of pneumonia the next day.

Legacy
This was the most people killed in an aircraft accident until a Lockheed C-130B Hercules was shot down in May 1968, killing 155 people. In terms of commercial aviation, the death toll would not be surpassed until Viasa Flight 742 on March 1969. The aircraft crashed on takeoff and killed all 84 people on board, as well as 71 people on the ground.

In 2010, on the 50th anniversary of the accident, a memorial to the 134 victims of the two crashes was revealed in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. The cemetery is the site of the common grave containing the bodies which could not be identified.

The collision is covered in "Collision Course," the fifth episode of the first season of The Weather Channel documentary series Why Planes Crash.

References

Category:1960 in the United States
Category:Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States
Category:Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error
Category:Disasters in New York (state)
Category:History of New York City