Plane Crashes

JFK International Airport, June 1975...The burning, twisted wreckage of an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 lay amid clothing and luggage strewn about the charred earth.

Makeshift morgues along Rockaway Boulevard attested to the horrors of the crash. The jet carried 115 passengers and eight crewmembers – en route from New Orleans to JFK.

One hundred and nine people died when the jet crashed and burned during an attempted landing at JFK in the midst of an electrical storm.

Fourteen people survived the crash.

Eyewitnesses said they saw lightning strike the tail of the jet as it approached JFK’s Runway 22-Left.

It was the worst single plane disaster ever in the metropolitan area. The death toll ran just one short of the worst single plane crash in U.S. history up to that point.

LaGuardia Airport, Dec. 29, 1975

A blast ripped apart the main terminal building at LaGuardia Airport killing 11 people and injuring 58.

The airport was a target of a bomb blast inside the baggage area of TWA’s lower concourse.

The tragedy left a large portion of the terminal in rubble and because anyone could have been in the building at the time of the blast, passenger lists were of no help in identifying the dead. After years of intensive investigations it was never discovered whether the bomb was intended to go off in-flight or if the terminal was the target.

Although police investigators suspected a Croation terrorist group, the culprits were never found.

LaGuardia Airport, September 1989

The air was chilly on the Wednesday night when USAir Flight 5050 took off from LaGuardia headed to North Carolina.

Moments after the start of its takeoff, the Boeing 737 plunged into Bowery Bay when the pilot aborted the takeoff.

It slammed into the water and broke into three parts as it hit a light stanchion and a pier in the water.

Two women were the only fatalities – their destiny was decided when they took two seats at the precise spot where the plane split. There were 57 passengers and six crew members aboard the flight.

More than 40 passengers were injured.

Two were taken to local hospitals where they were admitted for chest pains and head injuries.

Controversy soon filled the probe into the crash when a passenger told investigators that he had been out “bar-hopping” with the pilot, co-pilot and a stewardess just before the flight.

The accusations were never proven, and federal investigators later pointed to a defect in the aircraft rudder as the cause of the crash. The rudder was subsequently redesigned.

 LaGuardia Airport, March 1992

Tragedy stalked the 51 people on board USAir Flight 405, doomed on a snow-slicked runway leading into Bowery Bay.

Bound for Cleveland, the Fokker F28-4000 crashed on takeoff at the end of LaGuardia Runway 13-31, killing 27 and injuring 24.

Eighteen of those who died drowned while trapped in their seats. The jet’s pilot was one of the fatalities.

Survivors said the jet was briefly airborne before the “first” crash. They recalled bodies floating through fire and smoke.

People were with missing limbs, some decapitated, yet still in their seats – with their seatbelts on. One male passenger recalled an initial panic throughout the cabin – and then a “terrible, terrible silence.”

Rescuers suffered more than 100 injuries – most caused by shanks of metal protruding from the wreckage and the icy waters of the bay.

JFK International Airport, August 1992

A ruptured fuel tank forced TWA Flight 843 to abort takeoff from JFK International Airport.

The Lockheed L-1011 was enroute to San Francisco when the pilot was forced to land the plane on JFK Runway 22.

As a massive fire grew in the tail section of the aircraft, 292 passengers and eight crew members were safely evacuated by sliding down emergency chutes activated by the crew.

Firefighters successfully doused the blaze, keeping it away from 100,000 pounds of unburned fuel in the aircraft’s central fuel tank.

JFK International Airport, July 1996

TWA Flight 800 took off from Queens’ JFK Airport, headed to Paris on the night of July 17, 1996.

Twelve minutes and 90 miles later, the Boeing 747 burst into flames and tumbled into the Atlantic Ocean, just off East Moriches, L.I., setting the sea on fire, and killing all 230 people onboard.

Three and a half years later, investigators had yet to release an “official” cause of the crash.

Probers ruled out an act of terrorism as the cause, and pointed to a massive mechanical malfunction instead – possibly from a spark, which caused an explosion in the plane’s massive central fuel tank.

LaGuardia Airport, August 1996

Delta Flight 801, a Boeing 727 with 132 people on board, departed LaGuardia Airport for Tampa, Florida.

Moments into the flight, the pilot radioed that he was experiencing trouble with a rear engine.

The plane was diverted to JFK Airport, but as it made its approach it dropped several small pieces and one large chunk of the engine on houses along 63rd Avenue in Flushing. The pilot managed to safely land the airplane.

JFK International Airport, August 1996

A nine-foot long piece of wing flap tumbled into the middle of 156th Avenue between 89th and 90th Streets in Howard Beach.

The 40-pound outboard flap broke off the right wing of TWA Flight 782, a Boeing 727 from Orlando, Florida, headed for JFK. No one was injured on board the plane. But the street below was not as lucky.

The wing flap carved a two-inch deep hole in the street.

TWA officials were caught red-faced on the following day, when FAA investigators walked into a TWA hangar at JFK and found airline mechanics working feverishly to fix the plane’s broken wing.

The problem was that TWA officials had not yet notified the FAA that the wing came from one of their planes.