American Airlines Flight 1
Encyclopedia
American Airlines Flight 1 was a domestic, scheduled passenger flight from New York International (Idlewild) Airport
(later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport), New York
to Los Angeles International Airport
, California
that crashed shortly after take-off on 1 March 1962. All 87 passengers and eight crew died in the crash. A Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigation determined that a manufacturing defect in the automatic pilot system led to an uncommanded rudder control system input, causing the accident.
A number of notable people lost their lives in the crash. It was the sixth fatal Boeing 707 crash, and, at the time, the deadliest.
Today, American Airlines Flight 1 is still used on its New York-Los Angeles route.
-123B, U.S. Registry N7506A. It was delivered to American Airlines
on 12 February 1959. At the time of the crash, it had accumulated 8,147 flight hours during the course of three years. Its last periodic inspection had occurred on 18 January 1962 at 7,922 hours of air time. The flight crew consisted of Captain James T. Heist, First Officer Michael Barna, Jr., Second Officer Robert J. Pecor, and Flight Engineer Robert J. Cain. Also aboard were four stewardesses: Shirley Grabow, Lois Kelly, Betty Moore, and Rosalind Stewart.(Navigate: Historical Aircraft Accident Reports (1934-1965)→ 1962→ American Airlines)
The aircraft received instructions to taxi to New York International Airport's Runway 31L at 09:54 AM EST, and clearance to proceed to Los Angeles non-stop under instrument flight rules
(IFR) at 10:02 AM EST. Flight 1 became airborne at 10:07 AM EST. Following standard FAA Air Traffic Control instructions from Departure Control (a radar facility controlling aircraft departing from all three major New York area airports), the aircraft initiated a left turn. In the course of the turn, the Boeing banked
too far, flipped 90 degrees, and began an upside-down, nose-first descent in a nearly vertical dive.
Flight 1 crashed into Pumpkin Patch Channel, Jamaica Bay
, at 10:08:49. Passengers aboard a plane bound for Albany
that took off immediately after Flight 1 could only watch, horrified, as the airliner plunged into the bay. The jet exploded upon impact, a geyser of brackish water
and black smoke erupted from the site, and the scattered debris and fuel caught fire. Long Island residents described hearing explosions which shook the foundations of nearby houses, though no one on the ground is known to have actually witnessed the crash.
land on Jamaica Bay used as a wildlife sanctuary. Upwards of 300 policemen and fire fighters, including 125 detectives attending a narcotics seminar at the Police Academy, as well as Coast Guard helicopters were mobilized to the crash site within half an hour of the crash for rescue operations, only to find that there were no survivors. The three-alarm fire was under control by 10:50 AM EST, by which point only wreckage remained. Low tides aided search personnel in their attempts to salvage bodies from the downed aircraft. Only a few bodies remained intact.
Investigators were unable to recover sufficient body tissue to determine whether the crew had been physically incapacitated at the time of the crash. Toxicology reports conclusively ruled out toxic gases, alcohol and drugs as possible cause for the crash. Milton Helpern, Chief Medical Examiner, decided that having relatives attempt visual identification of the crash victims was inhumane, and ordered dental and fingerprint comparisons. In early July, the Federal Aviation Administration
announced their investigators believed that a cotter pin and a bolt
missing from the rudder mechanism might have caused the crash of Flight 1. Though considered to be a "mechanic's oversight," the FAA nevertheless wired all 707 operators to inform them of the potential danger of the assembly. Today, American 1 operates as a Boeing 767-200ER from JFK to Los Angeles. This is contrary to the procedure of retiring flight numbers that have crashed.
The Civil Aeronautics Board received notification of the accident at 10:10 AM EST and immediately sent investigators to Jamaica Bay to conduct an investigation. The flight recorder
was found on March 9 and sent to Washington for analysis. Public hearings were held at the International Hotel in New York on March 20–23, 1962. In January 1963, the Civil Aeronautics Board released a report stating that the "most likely abnormality" to have caused the crash was a short circuit caused by wires in the automatic piloting system that had been damaged in the manufacturing process. FAA inspectors had inspected units at a Teterboro, New Jersey
Bendix Corporation
plant and discovered workers using tweezers to bind up bundles of wires, thereby damaging them. The Bendix Corporation issued denials, stating that the units underwent 61 inspections during manufacturing, in addition to inspections during installation and maintenance work, and insisted that had the protective coating of the wires been breached at some point it would have surely been caught and the unit replaced.
In addition, 15 abstract paintings by the artist Arshile Gorky
were en route to Los Angeles for an exhibition and were destroyed. Alton Jones was found to be carrying $55,690 in cash, including a $10,000 bill.
, entitled "Flight 1". The character Pete Campbell
's father is one of the passengers killed. Also, at the end of the episode, when the character Don Draper
is sitting in an Asian restaurant, the song "Sukiyaki
" sung by Kyu Sakamoto
is playing. On August 12, 1985, Sakamoto himself died in the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123
.
John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport is an international airport located in the borough of Queens in New York City, about southeast of Lower Manhattan. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway to the United States, handling more international traffic than any other airport in North...
(later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport), New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving the Greater Los Angeles Area, the second-most populated metropolitan area in the United States. It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
that crashed shortly after take-off on 1 March 1962. All 87 passengers and eight crew died in the crash. A Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigation determined that a manufacturing defect in the automatic pilot system led to an uncommanded rudder control system input, causing the accident.
A number of notable people lost their lives in the crash. It was the sixth fatal Boeing 707 crash, and, at the time, the deadliest.
Today, American Airlines Flight 1 is still used on its New York-Los Angeles route.
Flight
The aircraft was a Boeing 707Boeing 707
The Boeing 707 is a four-engine narrow-body commercial passenger jet airliner developed by Boeing in the early 1950s. Its name is most commonly pronounced as "Seven Oh Seven". The first airline to operate the 707 was Pan American World Airways, inaugurating the type's first commercial flight on...
-123B, U.S. Registry N7506A. It was delivered to American Airlines
American Airlines
American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...
on 12 February 1959. At the time of the crash, it had accumulated 8,147 flight hours during the course of three years. Its last periodic inspection had occurred on 18 January 1962 at 7,922 hours of air time. The flight crew consisted of Captain James T. Heist, First Officer Michael Barna, Jr., Second Officer Robert J. Pecor, and Flight Engineer Robert J. Cain. Also aboard were four stewardesses: Shirley Grabow, Lois Kelly, Betty Moore, and Rosalind Stewart.(Navigate: Historical Aircraft Accident Reports (1934-1965)→ 1962→ American Airlines)
The aircraft received instructions to taxi to New York International Airport's Runway 31L at 09:54 AM EST, and clearance to proceed to Los Angeles non-stop under instrument flight rules
Instrument flight rules
Instrument flight rules are one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other are visual flight rules ....
(IFR) at 10:02 AM EST. Flight 1 became airborne at 10:07 AM EST. Following standard FAA Air Traffic Control instructions from Departure Control (a radar facility controlling aircraft departing from all three major New York area airports), the aircraft initiated a left turn. In the course of the turn, the Boeing banked
Flight dynamics
Flight dynamics is the science of air vehicle orientation and control in three dimensions. The three critical flight dynamics parameters are the angles of rotation in three dimensions about the vehicle's center of mass, known as pitch, roll and yaw .Aerospace engineers develop control systems for...
too far, flipped 90 degrees, and began an upside-down, nose-first descent in a nearly vertical dive.
Flight 1 crashed into Pumpkin Patch Channel, Jamaica Bay
Jamaica Bay
Jamaica Bay is located on the southwestern tip of Long Island in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, and the town of Hempstead, New York/hamlet of Inwood...
, at 10:08:49. Passengers aboard a plane bound for Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
that took off immediately after Flight 1 could only watch, horrified, as the airliner plunged into the bay. The jet exploded upon impact, a geyser of brackish water
Brackish water
Brackish water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root "brak," meaning "salty"...
and black smoke erupted from the site, and the scattered debris and fuel caught fire. Long Island residents described hearing explosions which shook the foundations of nearby houses, though no one on the ground is known to have actually witnessed the crash.
Investigation
The aircraft crashed into a remote area of marshMarsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
land on Jamaica Bay used as a wildlife sanctuary. Upwards of 300 policemen and fire fighters, including 125 detectives attending a narcotics seminar at the Police Academy, as well as Coast Guard helicopters were mobilized to the crash site within half an hour of the crash for rescue operations, only to find that there were no survivors. The three-alarm fire was under control by 10:50 AM EST, by which point only wreckage remained. Low tides aided search personnel in their attempts to salvage bodies from the downed aircraft. Only a few bodies remained intact.
Investigators were unable to recover sufficient body tissue to determine whether the crew had been physically incapacitated at the time of the crash. Toxicology reports conclusively ruled out toxic gases, alcohol and drugs as possible cause for the crash. Milton Helpern, Chief Medical Examiner, decided that having relatives attempt visual identification of the crash victims was inhumane, and ordered dental and fingerprint comparisons. In early July, the Federal Aviation Administration
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...
announced their investigators believed that a cotter pin and a bolt
Bolt
-Fasteners:*A cap screw, as used in a bolted joint*Screw, a cylindrical threaded fastener*Dead bolt, a kind of locking mechanism*Bolt , an anchor point used in rock climbing-Weaponry:*Bolt , a mechanism used in firearms...
missing from the rudder mechanism might have caused the crash of Flight 1. Though considered to be a "mechanic's oversight," the FAA nevertheless wired all 707 operators to inform them of the potential danger of the assembly. Today, American 1 operates as a Boeing 767-200ER from JFK to Los Angeles. This is contrary to the procedure of retiring flight numbers that have crashed.
The Civil Aeronautics Board received notification of the accident at 10:10 AM EST and immediately sent investigators to Jamaica Bay to conduct an investigation. The flight recorder
Flight recorder
A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of an aircraft accident or incident. For this reason, flight recorders are required to be capable of surviving the conditions likely to be encountered in a severe aircraft...
was found on March 9 and sent to Washington for analysis. Public hearings were held at the International Hotel in New York on March 20–23, 1962. In January 1963, the Civil Aeronautics Board released a report stating that the "most likely abnormality" to have caused the crash was a short circuit caused by wires in the automatic piloting system that had been damaged in the manufacturing process. FAA inspectors had inspected units at a Teterboro, New Jersey
Teterboro, New Jersey
Teterboro is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 67, making it the fourth smallest municipality, by population, in New Jersey....
Bendix Corporation
Bendix Corporation
The Bendix Corporation was an American manufacturing and engineering company which during various times in its 60 year existence made brake systems, aeronautical hydraulics, avionics, aircraft and automobile fuel control systems, radios, televisions and computers, and which licensed its name for...
plant and discovered workers using tweezers to bind up bundles of wires, thereby damaging them. The Bendix Corporation issued denials, stating that the units underwent 61 inspections during manufacturing, in addition to inspections during installation and maintenance work, and insisted that had the protective coating of the wires been breached at some point it would have surely been caught and the unit replaced.
Notable victims
A number of notable people were aboard Flight 1 when it went down in Jamaica Bay. They included:- John Dieckman, international champion flyfisher and caster.
- Admiral Richard Lansing Conolly, USN (retired), president of Long Island UniversityLong Island UniversityLong Island University is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution of higher education in the U.S. state of New York.-History:...
and two-time Deputy Chief of Naval OperationsChief of Naval OperationsThe Chief of Naval Operations is a statutory office held by a four-star admiral in the United States Navy, and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Navy. The office is a military adviser and deputy to the Secretary of the Navy...
. - W. Alton JonesW. Alton JonesW. Alton Jones , who served as president of the oil and gas conglomerate Cities Service Company , was an influential industrialist, philanthropist, and close personal friend of United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower....
, multi-millionaire former president and chairman of Cities Service Company and close personal friend of Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. EisenhowerDwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
. - Arnold KirkebyArnold KirkebyArnold Kirkeby was an American hotelier, art collector and real estate investor.He is now best known for owning the mansion in the West Los Angeles suburb of Bel-Air, which was the exterior set for the CBS TV show The Beverly Hillbillies.- Biography :Arnold S...
, millionaire realtor and former head of the Kirkeby chain of luxury hotels. - Louise Lindner Eastman, whose daughter Linda EastmanLinda McCartneyLinda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney was an American photographer, musician and animal rights activist. Her father and mother were Lee Eastman and Louise Sara Lindner Eastman....
would later marry the BeatleThe BeatlesThe Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
Paul McCartneyPaul McCartneySir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
. - Irving Rubine, producer of the film The Guns of NavaroneThe Guns of Navarone (film)The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 British-American Action/Adventure war film based on the 1957 novel of the same name about the Dodecanese Campaign of World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean. It stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Anthony Quayle and Stanley...
. - Emelyn WhitonEmelyn WhitonEmelyn Thatcher Whiton was a female American sailor who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics....
, 1952 Olympic1952 Summer OlympicsThe 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Helsinki, Finland in 1952. Helsinki had been earlier given the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were cancelled due to World War II...
sailing gold medalist (6-metre keelboat6 Metre (keelboat)The International Six Metre Class is a class of racing yachts. Six Metre boats are a construction class, meaning that the boats are not identical but are all designed to meet specific measurement formula, in this case International Rule...
). - Bob Paschall, Broadway stage manager.
In addition, 15 abstract paintings by the artist Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
were en route to Los Angeles for an exhibition and were destroyed. Alton Jones was found to be carrying $55,690 in cash, including a $10,000 bill.
In popular culture
The crash serves as a central plot element in the second episode of the second season of the American dramatic television series Mad MenMad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
, entitled "Flight 1". The character Pete Campbell
Pete Campbell
Peter "Pete" Campbell is a fictional character on AMC's television series Mad Men. He is portrayed by Vincent Kartheiser.-Biography:...
's father is one of the passengers killed. Also, at the end of the episode, when the character Don Draper
Don Draper
Donald "Don" Draper is a fictional character and the protagonist of AMC's television series Mad Men. He is portrayed by 2008 Golden Globe winner Jon Hamm. Until the third season finale, Draper was Creative Director of Manhattan advertising firm Sterling Cooper...
is sitting in an Asian restaurant, the song "Sukiyaki
Sukiyaki (song)
The cover version by A Taste of Honey reached number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also went to number 1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and Soul chart)....
" sung by Kyu Sakamoto
Kyu Sakamoto
was a Japanese singer and actor, best known outside of Japan for his international hit song "Sukiyaki", which was sung in Japanese and sold over 13 million copies...
is playing. On August 12, 1985, Sakamoto himself died in the crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123
Japan Airlines Flight 123
Japan Airlines Flight 123 was a Japan Airlines domestic flight from Tokyo International Airport to Osaka International Airport on August 12, 1985. The Boeing 747-146SR that made this route, registered , suffered mechanical failures 12 minutes into the flight and 32 minutes later crashed into two...
.
See also
- Lists of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
- Air safetyAir safetyAir safety is a term encompassing the theory, investigation and categorization of flight failures, and the prevention of such failures through regulation, education and training. It can also be applied in the context of campaigns that inform the public as to the safety of air travel.-United...
- American Airlines Flight 587American Airlines Flight 587American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300, crashed into the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens, a borough of New York City, New York, shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport on November 12, 2001. This is the second deadliest U.S...