This March 2000 private plane crash took only the lives of it’s occupants. Tribune Photo by Liz Goff
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Accidents Haunt Queens And Its Airports
By LIZ GOFF
The friendly skies aren’t always friendly to Queens residents who live between the borough’s two major airports.
Residents in neighborhoods from Astoria to the Rockaways live with the fear of flying objects – from chunks of airline debris falling from the sky to the catastrophic crash of a commercial jetliner.
Queens has witnessed more than eight catastrophic and near-catastrophic air disasters since the mid-1970s, including the November 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 – which plunged into a residential neighborhood in Belle Harbor, killing everybody on board the Dominican Republic-bound flight and five on the ground.
Lightning Strike
In June 1975 an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 jetliner from New Orleans crashed and burned in an attempted landing during a lightning storm.
Rockaway Boulevard was turned into a scene of twisted wreckage, charred earth and makeshift morgues as federal authorities poured over the site searching for clues to the disaster.
The JFK-bound flight was carrying 115 passengers and eight crewmembers when the tail of the aircraft was struck by lightning, authorities said. The crash killed 109 people, including the pilot of the ill-fated jet. Fourteen survivors were treated at local hospitals for burns and shock caused by the crash.
Splashdown
In September 1989, a Boeing 737 taking off for North Carolina crashed into the murky waters off LaGuardia Airport.
Two women sitting 10 rows from the back of the plane were killed at the spot where the aircraft split – as it plunged into the water when the pilot aborted the takeoff.
A passenger sparked a scandal when he told federal investigators he had been out barhopping with the pilot and co-pilot just before the scheduled takeoff of USAir Flight 5050.
Highway Landing
The pilot of a small plane was lucky to be alive after crashing his Piper-Saratoga on an exit ramp of the Clearview Expressway in February 1992.
The private plane came to rest on bustling Union Turnpike after its engine quit during a flight from New Jersey to Boston.
The pilot told authorities he was trying to make it to LaGuardia Airport after declaring the emergency.
Snow Explosion
The crash of flight 587 Nov 12, 2001, was one of the worst to hit Queens. Tribune Photo by Ira Cohen |
On a snowy night in March 1992, USAir Flight 405, bound for Cleveland from LaGuardia Airport, crashed on takeoff and burned when a gas tank erupted on impact.
The Dutch-built Fokker F28-4000 was carrying 47 passengers and a crew of four when it crashed into the waters of Bowery Bay. The fiery crash killed 27 people and sent 24 others to local hospitals.
The weather-related crash led to two investigations, focused on de-icing procedures used for aircrafts prior to take-off.
Suspicions Remain
TWA Flight 800 lifted off from JFK Airport at 8:15 p.m. on July 17, 1996, bound for Paris with 230 people on board – a “blip” on airport radar screens. At 8:45 p.m., the plane was gone.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing two fireballs against a moonless sky, plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean just shy of Long Island’s southern shore.
Rescuers who raced to the scene found the sea on fire amid pieces of the wreckage, personal belongings of the victims and bodies – dozens of them. No one on board Flight 800 survived the incident.
Investigators later said the victims died a horrific death. The first explosion seared the nose of the Boeing 747 off the body, leaving passengers and crew fully aware, for at least 40 seconds, that the cockpit was gone and the plane was about to crash into the water.
A second explosion ripped the right wing from the aircraft, and a third blast sent the plane tumbling into the sea in flames, investigators said.
Theories on the cause of the disaster have ranged from a possible missile attack, to an explosion caused by faulty wires that sparked inside an empty fuel tank.
Belle Harbor
American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into the neighborhood of Belle Harbor on Nov. 12, 2001 – just two months after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center.
The Dominican Republic-bound flight took off from JFK Airport at about 9:15 a.m., with 260 people on board. Just a few minutes later, the French-manufactured Airbus A300 split apart, sending debris into a gas station and two homes. Five people on the ground were killed by the impact.
Initial investigations determined that “excessive” movement of the rudder by the plane’s co-pilot caused the crash. Airbus recently determined that the crash could have been caused by deterioration of composite materials used in the rudder manufacture – and issued a recommendation to airlines to check rudders on all A300 series Airbus aircraft for erosion caused by jet fuel leakage.
The Flushing Factor
Flushing Airport, opened in 1927 as the City’s only general aviation facility, became a site of contention in the early 1970’s, when local residents and politicians voiced fears of a plane crashing into nearby homes and businesses.
In May 1971, U.S. Rep. Benjamin Rosenthal called on Mayor John Lindsay to close down Flushing Airport, calling it a “threat to the safety of persons living nearby and a potentially dangerous source of increased air traffic – in our already overcrowded skies.”
A Piper Comanche twin-engine plane crashed into a factory on 129th Street in College Point in January 1977, shortly after takeoff from Flushing Airport.
The crash killed the pilot and ignited a civic battle that would last for years, over the future of the airport. Federal officials closed Flushing Airport in August 1977 for a 14-month hiatus. The airport was reopened in October 1978, to the plaudits of pilots of small planes.
A student pilot and his instructor were killed when their single engine private plane crashed a few feet from the Whitestone Expressway in April 1980, shortly after taking off. The incident renewed calls from local officials for the closing of the facility.
Federal officials suspended operations at Flushing Airport in April 1984. The facility has remained closed, despite efforts by backers in the late 1990s to establish the airport as a takeoff site for commercial blimps.
Fear Of Flying Objects
Queens residents are accustomed to keeping an eye on the sky, to avoid being knocked in the noggin by pieces of airplane debris that tumble to the ground after breaking apart in mid-air.
In August 1996, a 9-foot long piece of wing flap from a TWA jetliner landed in Howard Beach. The 40-pound outboard flap broke off the right wing of TWA Flight 782 as the plane was headed for a landing at JFK Airport.
About 24 hours before the TWA incident, a Delta jet spewed parts of an engine over a Flushing neighborhood. It took Delta officials several hours to confirm the incident – and to provide clean up and details on the mishap.
