On December 16, 1960, a United Airlines Douglas DC-8, bound for Idlewild Airport in New York City (now John F. Kennedy International Airport), collided with a TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation descending into LaGuardia Airport. One plane crashed on Staten Island, the other into Park Slope, Brooklyn, killing all 128 people on both aircraft and six people on the ground.
The United aircraft advised its company that one of its navigation units had stopped working (although air-traffic controllers were not notified of the problem), making it harder to navigate in instrument conditions. Air traffic control told the United aircraft to circle the holding point while awaiting clearance.
According to the DC-8's flight data recorder (the first time a "black box" had been used to provide extensive details in a crash investigation), the aircraft was 12 miles (19 km) off course when it collided with the TWA Constellation.
[–] someguyfromcanada [S] 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago (edited ago)
On December 16, 1960, a United Airlines Douglas DC-8, bound for Idlewild Airport in New York City (now John F. Kennedy International Airport), collided with a TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation descending into LaGuardia Airport. One plane crashed on Staten Island, the other into Park Slope, Brooklyn, killing all 128 people on both aircraft and six people on the ground.
The United aircraft advised its company that one of its navigation units had stopped working (although air-traffic controllers were not notified of the problem), making it harder to navigate in instrument conditions. Air traffic control told the United aircraft to circle the holding point while awaiting clearance.
According to the DC-8's flight data recorder (the first time a "black box" had been used to provide extensive details in a crash investigation), the aircraft was 12 miles (19 km) off course when it collided with the TWA Constellation.
Eleven year old United passenger Stephen Baltz survived the initial crash and was thrown into a snowbank where local residents rolled him in the snow to extinguish his burning clothing but died the next day.
The accident was the deadliest U.S. commercial aviation disaster at the time,
Source.