On this day in New York · June 24, 1975
Eastern Flight 66 Falls Short of the Runway
A Boeing 727 coming in from New Orleans flew into an invisible wall of wind on Rockaway Boulevard, and the crash that followed taught American aviation to fear a storm cell it didn't even have a name for yet.
The facts
- Date
- June 24, 1975
- Aircraft
- Boeing 727-225, registration N8845E, Eastern Air Lines
- Route
- New Orleans to John F. Kennedy International Airport, Queens
- Toll
- 113 of 124 aboard killed; 11 survived
On June 24, 1975, Eastern Air Lines Flight 66, a Boeing 727 inbound from New Orleans with 124 people aboard, was on final approach to Runway 22L at Kennedy Airport when it flew through a violent thunderstorm sitting almost on top of the landing path. The jet lost lift in the churning wind, dropped fast, and struck a row of approach light towers about 2,400 feet short of the runway before breaking apart and burning along Rockaway Boulevard in Queens. Captain John Kleven, First Officer William Eberhart, and Flight Engineer Gary Geurin were among the 113 people killed; only 11 passengers and crew survived. Investigators would spend years chasing the real culprit: a short, brutal downdraft that no controller or pilot at the time had the instruments or the vocabulary to detect.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
the aircraft's encounter with adverse winds associated with a very strong thunderstorm located astride the ILS localizer course, which resulted in high descent rate into the non-frangible approach light towers
National Transportation Safety Board, probable cause finding on the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 66
Source: Wikipedia -
downburst cells
term coined by meteorologist Ted Fujita in his investigation of the crash
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Flight 66 sent University of Chicago meteorologist Ted Fujita digging into the storm data, and what he found there, the downburst, became one of the most important discoveries in modern aviation safety. His theory was slow to catch on until two more airliners went down the same way, but it eventually forced airports nationwide, including Kennedy, to install wind shear detection systems that give pilots the seconds of warning Flight 66's crew never had.
Sources
Get the day it happened, the day it happens.
Every morning brief ends with this day in New York history, and every day adds a page to this almanac. Free, in your inbox.
Free to start. The unsubscribe link actually works.