An American Airlines Boeing 707, similar to the aircraft involved in the accident |
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 1 March 1962 |
| Type | Improper maintenance, manufacturing defect leading to mechanical failure |
| Site | Jamaica Bay, Queens, New York |
| Passengers | 87 |
| Crew | 8 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Fatalities | 95 (all) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 707-123B |
| Operator | American Airlines |
| Tail number | N7506A |
| Flight origin | New York International Airport, New York |
| Destination | Los Angeles International Airport, California |
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.[1]
Today, American Airlines Flight 1 is still used on its New York-Los Angeles route.
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The aircraft was a Boeing 707-123B, 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.[2] 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.[2]
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.[2] 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.[2]
Flight 1 crashed into Pumpkin Patch Channel, Jamaica Bay, at 10:08:49.[2] 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.[3][4] 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.[3] 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.[4][5]
The aircraft crashed into a remote area of marshland on Jamaica Bay used as a wildlife sanctuary.[4] 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.[4][5] The three-alarm fire was under control by 10:50 AM EST, by which point only wreckage remained.[5] Low tides aided search personnel in their attempts to recover bodies from the downed aircraft. Only a few bodies remained intact.[4]
Investigators were unable to recover sufficient body tissue to determine whether the crew had been physically incapacitated at the time of the crash.[2] Toxicology reports conclusively ruled out toxic gases, alcohol and drugs as possible cause for the crash.[2] Milton Helpern, Chief Medical Examiner, decided that having relatives attempt visual identification of the crash victims was inhumane, and ordered dental and fingerprint comparisons.[3] 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.[6] 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.[7] Public hearings were held at the International Hotel in New York on March 20–23, 1962.[2] 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.[8] 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.[9]
A number of notable people were aboard Flight 1 when it went down in Jamaica Bay.[10] They included:
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.[3]
The crash serves as a central plot element in the second episode of the second season of the American dramatic television series Mad Men, 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.
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