Eastern Air Lines Flight 375

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Eastern Air Lines Flight 375
Summary
Date  October 4, 1960
Type  Bird strike
Site  Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Fatalities  62
Injuries  10
Aircraft
 Aircraft type  Lockheed L-188 Electra
Operator  Eastern Air Lines
Tail number  N5533
Passengers  67
Crew  5
Survivors  10

Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, registration N5533, was a Lockheed L-188 Electra aircraft that crashed on takeoff from Boston, Massachusetts's Logan International Airport on October 4, 1960. 62 of 72 on board were killed in the accident; ten survived, nine with serious injuries.

Flight 375 began at New York City's LaGuardia Airport, and after Boston was scheduled to travel to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Charlotte, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia. The pilots had filed an IFR flight plan that would have had the aircraft cruising to Philadelphia at 10,000 feet. At 5:35 PM, the aircraft pulled away from the terminal and taxied to the threshold of Runway 09 for an easterly departure; the tower cleared it for takeoff at 5:39 PM.

The takeoff was normal until approximately six seconds after liftoff. At that point the aircraft encountered a flock of starlings. The aircraft veered to the left for a moment then resumed the runway heading. At a height of 200 feet it veered left again and sank nose-up to about 100 feet in altitude. It then rolled to the left, the nose dropped, and the aircraft crashed into Winthrop Bay. The fuselage broke into two pieces; eight passengers and two flight attendants in the rear section were thrown out of their seats and were quickly picked up by boats already in the bay. The front section sank to the bottom of the bay, taking the majority of the passengers and the flight crew with it. The entire accident sequence from the beginning of takeoff to the impact in the water took less than one minute.

Investigators with the Civil Aeronautics Board (the predecessor of the NTSB) determined that engines Nos. 1, 2, and 4 had each ingested at least one bird, and that engine No. 1 had ingested at least eight. The bird damage caused the No. 1 propeller to autofeather and the engine to shut down at the same time that damage to the No. 2 and No. 4 engines prevented those engines from developing full power at a critical stage of flight. The aircraft, unable to climb, went into a mush. The power interruption to the port engines probably caused the left wing to stall; the wing dropped and the aircraft crashed into the water. There was also evidence that birds had crashed into the windscreen, reducing the pilots' visibility; in addition, bird remains had clogged the Pitot tubes, making the pilots' airspeed indicators unreliable.

It was eventually determined that turbine engines such as those on the Electra were highly sensitive to damage from bird strikes. The CAB recommended to the CAA, the predecessor of the FAA, that steps be taken to reduce the damage caused by bird strikes to turbine engines, and that ways be found to reduce the populations of birds around airports.

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Coordinates: 42°21′57″N, 70°59′18″W

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