HONG KONG and NEW YORK -- A Boeing 737-800 passenger plane operated by China Eastern Airlines crashed on Monday in Guangxi . Both the pilot and the first officer had passed proficiency checks just a few months before the incident. The cause of the incident was high-intensity microburst-induced wind shear. The FAA also promised to retrofit earlier structures if funds were made available, although this effort ended up taking decades to finish. [3], After the initial explosion, the wrecked aircraft sank to the bottom in 75 feet (23m) of water. The resulting delays would leave them with a margin of fuel much too low for comfort, especially if they had to divert to LaGuardia. As an avid observer of the Indian aviation scene, he joins the Simple Flying team with nearly two years of experience as a writer. prepared to make a landing on runway 22. As they held over Southgate, the crew of flight 66 discussed their options for landing. Seconds later the DC-8 touched down hard on the runway, its crew shaken but unharmed. The following contributing factors were reported: Eastern Air Lines Flight 66, a Boeing 727-225 operated as a scheduled passenger flight from New Orleans to New York-JFK. By the end of the day several of them had died of their injuries. Fujitas study was the first to identify the phenomenon that he referred to as a downburst cell, known today as a microburst. Nevertheless, at 16:04, Captain Kleven announced, I have approach lights. The runway would surely come into view at any moment. Also onboard the flight deck were 31-year-old flight engineer Gary M. Geurin and another flight engineer Peter J. McCullough. By noon, it was already pouring and Fujita, a Japanese-American scientist, devoted much of his life to meteorology, unlocking mysteries of severe and catastrophic storms. But this time, with over 100 dead at one of the busiest airports in America, authorities listened. :3. Some even claimed they saw the plane get struck by lightning. Kyra Dempsey, analyzer of plane crashes. In his twenties, Fujita studied the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, studying burn marks and finding the height of detonation. Fujita was called in to investigate and he eventually determined that the cause of the crash was a phenomenon called a microburst that caused the plane to plummet. Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 was a regularly scheduled flight from New Orleans to New York City that crashed on June 24, 1975 while on approach to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing 113 of the 124 people on board. The first officer was Pilot Flying. The flight engineer was 31-year-old Gary M. Geurin, who had been with Eastern Air Lines since 1968 and had 3,910 flight hours, 3,123 of them on the Boeing 727. View original page. The approach speed was too high and the airplane was also too high and the glide so the crew landed 2,400 feet to far down the runway 01. 46 years later, we can look back and say that the 113 passengers and crew who lost their lives that day did not die in vain. Controllers at Kennedy Airport started putting numerous aircraft, including Eastern Airlines flight 66, into holding patterns over the Southgate and Bohemia intersections. Survivors. The second flight engineer, 33-year-old Peter J. McCullough, had been with Eastern Air Lines for four years and had 3,602 military flying hours and 1,767 civil flying hours, including 676 hours on the Boeing 727. Premiering on Tuesday, May 19, on PBS is a new American Experience documentary titled Mr. Tornado about the life of Tetsuya Theodore Fujita, the namesake of the Fujita scale of tornado damage intensity. But Eastern Airlines flight 66 continued blithely after them, unaware of the true danger of the storm that lay ahead. At 2333, the wind shifted to 310 at 7 knots. of Rockaway Boulevard. Most of the fuselage had disintegrated, but in the rearmost rows a few people some of them ejected from the plane while still strapped into their seats had also managed to survive. :2 At 15:52, the approach controller warned all incoming aircraft that the airport was experiencing "very light rain showers and haze" and zero visibility, and that all approaching aircraft would need to land using instrument flight rules. matter of seconds and soon the impact of the ground shattered the plane Only 11 of the 124 people onboard survived the crash. All our content comes from Wikipedia and under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. The thunderstorms came earlier and turned out to be stronger than advertised, and as the cells started to build up all over the New York Terminal Control Area, delays began to mount. :1 Fujita named this phenomenon "downburst cells" and determined that a plane can be "seriously affected" by "a downburst of air current". At 15:53:22, the flight contacted the Kennedy final vector controller, who continued to provide radar vectors around thunderstorms in the area, to sequence the flight with other traffic, and to position the flight on the localizer course. Yet, Fujita would face yet another weather-related anomaly in New Yorks JFK Airport. Eastern 401 Memorial becomes a reality in time for the 50th anniversary of the crash. These six massive impacts ripped the plane apart, sending debris tumbling onward toward Rockaway avenue as the ruptured fuel tanks burst into flames. A look at how severe wind shear resulted in 113 people losing their lives. Pan Am 212 acknowledged. Uh, I would suggest that you do, someone said. The wind shear wasnt accompanied by any appreciable turbulence, and in the low-visibility environment it wasnt immediately obvious that they were sinking rapidly. However, despite these reports, All had passed proficiency checks with the DC-7B aircraft. With First Officer Eberhart at the controls, flight 66 locked on to the instrument landing system and began to descend toward the runway. The headwind started to decrease, rolling back to 20 knots while the downdraft increased in strength to 6.4 meters per second. A 25-knot headwind disappeared in seconds, at the same time as the plane was struck by an intense downdraft. [2] Flight 663's departure turn, and Pan Am's subsequent turn left to its assigned heading, had placed the two aircraft on an apparent collision course. Today, Eastern Airlines flight 66 is not particularly well remembered. They were allowed to violate this rule if safety required them to do so, but their working policy was to follow whatever the computer program said as long as the wind speed over the runway was 15 knots or less. During the descent into Charlotte, until about 2 minutes and 30 seconds prior to the accident, the flight crew engaged in conversations not pertinent to the operation of the aircraft. I'm right with it." :39. The fundamental problem was that pilot reports were the only way for the controllers to know what the winds were like on approach, but their criteria for deciding the active runway didnt take pilot reports into account at all. The second flight engineer, 33-year-old Peter J. McCullough, had been with Eastern Air Lines for four years and had 3,602 military flying hours and 1,767 civil flying hours, including 676 hours on the Boeing 727. The pilots of flight 66 were warned of the inclement weather conditions at JKF prior to their departure from New Orleans. [1]:2 Because of the deteriorating weather, one of the crew members checked the weather at LaGuardia Airport in Flushing, Queens, the flight's alternate airport. In its final report, the NTSB explained that at the time, 49 CFR 830.2 defined "fatal injury" as an injury that results in death within 7 days of an accident. Less than a second later, the first officer said, "I got it." At a height of around 400 feet, a downdraft with a speed of about 5 meters per second (16 feet per second) struck the plane from above, pushing it below the glide slope. So it was not with great trepidation that the crew of Eastern Airlines flight 66, a regularly scheduled service from New Orleans to New York City, read out the weather report prior to departure: the prediction was for widely scattered thunderstorms with possible light rain after 20:00. All would be fine, they thought; they were scheduled to arrive around 16:00, well before the worst of the weather. find out how weather caused this flight's landing to go so wrong. His tremendous discovery of the microburst continues to contribute to the safety of all who fly, and his courage in illuminating and bravely approaching what was once deemed unknowable continues to inspire the meteorological and scientific community, the press release said. On the basis of yet another NTSB recommendation, the FAA began requiring that all new structures near runways, such as approach lighting piers, be made frangible so that they dont do so much damage to airplanes during accidents. That was enough for First Officer Eberhart. At 16:04:40, the captain said, "Stay on the gauges." As the downdraft was gaining speed, the headwind almost entirely vanished, which resulted in the aircraft losing lift and altitude. All but 11 people perished in the crash. The airspeed was oscillating between 140 and 148 knots and the sound of heavy rain could be heard as the aircraft descended below 500 feet. It proceeded on an IFR flight plan. At 16:05 and 11 seconds, the 727s left wing began to strike the 30-foot towers supporting the approach lighting pier. At the end of the 35-second period, the aircraft was still 1.5 nm short of the FAF. The Boeing rolled right and initiated a descent in an attempt to avoid a collision. If it was more than this, then safety became their primary consideration. This online resource has data that is subject to update and revision. The captain did not make the required callout at the FAF, which should have included the altitude (above field elevation) and deviation from the Vref speed. Eastern Air Lines Flight 537. Eastern 66 replied, "affirmative." On board Eastern Airlines flight 66, by now out of holding and headed for the airport, the crew listened in as their colleagues on flight 902 gave their report to air traffic control. During the investigation, meteorologist Ted Fujita worked with the NTSB and the Eastern Air Lines flight-safety department to study the weather phenomena encountered by Flight 66. During the takeoff roll on runway 09/27, the pilot-in-command started the rotation when the instructor shut down the left engine to simulate an engine failure. Most of the flight from New Orleans proved to be uneventful, until the plane neared John F. Kennedy International Airport. The flight engineer reported, "Three greens, 30 degrees, final checklist," and the captain responded, "Right." Boeing 727 approached the runway, it was swept down by wind shear This page was last updated at 2023-03-15 22:11 UTC. The Boeing 727 aircraft departed New Orleans at around 13:19 and set itself on a north-easterly course for the three-hour journey. Eastern Air Lines Flight 855. Convinced that he had just narrowly avoided a disaster, the captain of the DC-8 called the controller and said, I just highly recommend that you change the runways and land northwest, you have tremendous wind shear down near the ground on final.. Even a prompt application of maximum thrust may or may not have been enough to save the plane. Join the discussion of this article on Reddit! :1, The flight departed from Moisant Field at 13:19 Eastern Daylight Time with 124 people on board, including 116 passengers and 8 crew. After the simulator runs, eight of ten pilots who commented said that they might have crashed if they were flying Eastern 66, and seven of ten said that switching to visual flight when the runway came into view at 400 feet would have significantly delayed their recognition of the wind shear. [2] The CAB made no recommendations in the final accident report. All five occupants were injured, two of them seriously. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigation determined that evasive maneuvers undertaken by Flight 663 to avoid an oncoming Pan Am Boeing 707 caused the pilot to suffer spatial disorientation and lose control of the aircraft. [7], The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigated the accident. Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 was a regularly scheduled flight from New Orleans to New York City that crashed on June 24, 1975 while on approach to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing 113 of the 124 people on board. At 07:33:24, the aircraft passed over Ross Intersection (the FAF) at an altitude of 1,350 feet (624 feet above field elevation), which is 450 feet below the prescribed crossing altitude. The findings suggested that the ill-fated flight flew into extreme wind shear at the very margin of its capability to penetrate safely. The NTSB also recommended that separate anemometers be installed for each runway; today, such a configuration is standard, and at major airports there are usually several anemometers positioned at different points along the runway. Untapped New York unearths New York Citys secrets and hidden gems. But the controller never replied. Of 54 simulated approaches, 18 ended in a crash. [3][6] By sunrise, seven bodies had been recovered;[5] three more were discovered in the course of the following three days. it flew closer to the landing sight. It was destroyed by the impact and ensuing fire. On the morning of June 24, 1975, New York City (NYC) was preparing According to the conversation recorded by the cockpit voice recorder, the captain of Flight 66 was aware of reports of severe wind shear on the final approach path (which he confirmed by radio to the final-vector controller), but decided to continue nonetheless. Eastern 66 acknowledged the clearance at 1600:54.5, "Okay, we'll let your know about the conditions." Pin. The crew quickly reported that they were abandoning their approach, telling the controller, We had a pretty good shear pulling us to the right and down, visibility was nil, nil out over the marker correction, at 200 feet, it was nothing., Okay, the controller replied, the shear you say pulled you right and down?, Yeah, said flight 902, we were on course and down to about 250 feet. But while future accidents would continue to reveal gaps in the system, there would have been no system at all without Eastern Airlines flight 66. As a direct result of the crash, the FAA helped develop the Low Level Wind Shear Alert System, or LLWSAS (LLWAS today), a network of anemometers surrounding an airport that can detect divergent wind directions and velocities and sound a wind shear alarm in the control tower. The NTSB describes all times in its final report using Eastern Daylight Time. Pieces of the plane, pieces of the approach lights, and bodies of victims lay scattered for several hundred meters through the driving rain. He continually sought out new techniques and tools beginning with his attempts to measure wind from the roof of his home as young boy, to creating maps to track localized weather movements, to utilizing satellite mapping and Doppler radar to capture images of microbursts. Okay, were indicating wind right down the runway at 15 knots when you landed, he said to the DC-8 captain, implying that runway 22L had a manageable headwind that should have been no problem at all. Many of the tools and procedures used today to keep planes away from thunderstorms and inform pilots about localized weather conditions trace their roots back to the initiatives spawned from this crash. F/O advised captain to flare, but flare was inadequate. At 1603:12, the flight established communications with Kennedy tower local controller and reported that they were, "outer marker, inbound." Eastern Air Lines flight 66 was a scheduled passenger service from New Orleans International Airport (MSY) in Louisiana (currently known as Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) to JFK. As the crews of both Flying Tiger Line flight 161 and Eastern Airlines flight 902 discovered, maximum thrust may be required just to prevent the plane from descending under such conditions. 2020 Anchor FM Inc. All rights reserved. Discover the citys most unique and surprising places and events for the curious mind. On Tuesday June 24, 1975, Flight 66 was operated using a Boeing 727 trijet, registration number N8845E. 15 Public Art Installations to See in NYC, May 2023, Strikingly Realistic Miniature Art Depicts Scenes of Gritty NYC. As emergency crews arrived on the scene, they pulled some 13 or 14 survivors from the wreckage, all of them except the flight attendants suffering from various degrees of burns, many of them in critical condition. The flight engineer was 31-year-old Gary M. Geurin, who had been with Eastern Air Lines since 1968 and had 3,910 flight hours, 3,123 of them on the Boeing 727. Then the wind changed direction so rapidly that they lost 24 knots of airspeed in ten seconds and their descent rate increased from 750 feet per minute to 1,215. [1]:2 Controllers continued giving the crew radar vectors to operate around the approaching thunderstorms and sequence into the landing pattern with other traffic. At 1603:57.7, the flight engineer called, "1000 feet" and at 1604:25, the sound of rain was recorded. The airspeed at this time was 168 knots, as contrasted with the recommended procedure which calls for the airspeed when passing over the FAF to be in the area of Vref, which in this instance was 122 knots. He was well over the top of us, and it looked like he went into an absolute vertical turn and kept rolling. Theres a scene in the film about the deadly June 24, 1975 Eastern Airlines crash at JFK, Mary Lugo of CaraMar Publicity told us. When a warning sounded in the cockpit indicating a +/- 250 feet deviation from the selected altitude, none of the crew members react to the warning sound and no action was taken. There wasnt enough time to stop the wind shear from pushing the plane straight into the ground. He was administering a required flight check on Geurin. Thus the controllers believed that the wind speed was moderate and that the wind was aligned perfectly for landing on runway 22L; the computer program told them runway 22L was the ideal runway to use; and changing the runway on short notice would cause major delays and increase their already high workload as they maneuvered all the inbound airplanes over to the new approach path while ensuring they maintained a safe distance from one another. Eastern 66 arrived in the New York City terminal area without reported difficulty, and, beginning at 15:35:11, Kennedy approach control provided radar vectors to sequence the flight with other traffic and to position it for an ILS approach to runway 22L at the Kennedy airport. Fujita identified "cells of intense downdrafts" during the storm that caused aircraft flying through them "considerable difficulties in landing". As the two airliners approached similar positions, their pilots had no points of reference with which to determine the actual separation distance or position. Flight 66 crashed into the approach light towers just before runway 22L. At 2341LT, the crew was instructed by ATC to turn heading 180 and a minute later, the first officer realized that something was wrong with the altitude. The flight was nearly centered on the glideslope when the flight engineer called, "500 feet." At 07:33:57, the first officer answered "Yeah". [2] After the initial impact, the plane banked to the left and continued to strike the approach lights until it burst into flames and scattered the wreckage along Rockaway Boulevard, which runs along the northeast perimeter of the airport. Lets take a closer look at the incident and what caused it. air-traffic controllers allowed the planes to land on the runway. Seven seconds later, while turning in a left angle of 28, the left engine struck the ground then the aircraft crashed in the Everglades National Park, about 20 miles short of runway threshold, and disintegrated on impact. :2 At 15:35, the aircraft was told to contact the JFK approach controller for instructions, and the approach controller sequenced it into the approach pattern for Runway 22L. The wing started to disintegrate and the plane rolled 90 degrees to the left, carving a trench through the ground as it came down on its side. [1]:12 The flight operated from New Orleans to the New York City area without any reported difficulty. Fujita used this outbreak as an opportunity to expand his research, so he conducted over 10,000 miles of aerial surveys, measuring 148 tornadoes on the F-scale. The aircraft then continued to Rockaway Boulevard, where it came to rest. :2 Controllers continued giving the crew radar vectors to operate around the approaching thunderstorms and sequence into the landing pattern with other traffic. The automatic terminal information service (ATIS) reported: "Kennedy weather, VFR, sky partially obscured, estimated ceiling 4,000 broken, 5 miles with haze wind 210 at 10, altimeter 30.15, Expect vectors to an ILS runway 22L, landing runway 22L, departures are off 22R " At 15:52:43, the controller transmitted, "All aircraft this frequency, we just went IFR with 2 miles very light rain showers and haze. Indeed, pilots were trained to prepare for known wind shear conditions by adding 10 or 15 knots to the normal approach speed, ensuring that they could easily accommodate a sudden loss of airspeed upon encountering the wind shear. However, the pilots had spotted the runway by this time and pretty much abandoned the instruments on his ILS approach. Fujita developed the Fujita scale, a schematic for measuring the intensity of tornadoes. In the back of the plane, the only area that was substantially intact, the two aft flight attendants realized that they had survived the crash with only moderate injuries. TORNADO 3: Group picture at the University of Chicago, Conference of Super Tornado Outbreak, July 10, 1974. Credit: Gregory S. Forbes. . All right, at three miles north of Dutch is Clipper 212 descending to 4,000. To make matters worse, their designated alternate airport LaGuardia was also affected by the thunderstorms. Commercials are included.Posted for educational and histo. The aircrafts left wing was damaged severely by impact with these towers--the outboard section was severed. Neither plane reported the conditions they encountered, believing that the controller was already well aware of the problem. The first officer was 34-year-old William Eberhart, who had been with Eastern Air Lines for nearly nine years. But they decided to continue with the flight since the weather report predicted severe conditions would arise a full four hours after the planned arrival of flight 66. and a second later, at 16:05:10, an unintelligible exclamation was recorded, and the first officer commanded, "Takeoff thrust." noon when two airplanes approaching John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) The victims included American Basketball Association player Wendell Ladner, a member of the 1974 champion, New York Nets, and Iveson B. Noland, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. One minute later, the first officer, who was flying the aircraft, called for completion of the final checklist. This resulted in none of the pilots realizing that the planes descent rate had more than doubled to 1,500 feet per minute. He was administering a required flight check on Geurin. The final vector controller asked Eastern 66 if they had heard Eastern 902's report. Within seconds after the discussion of Carowinds Tower terminated at 07:32:48, the rate of descent of the aircraft was slowed from about 1,500 feet per minute to less than 300 feet per minute. Then the headwind almost entirely disappeared, falling to just five knots in a matter of seconds. The pilot warned the tower of the wind shear conditions, but other aircraft continued to land. In the aftermath of the crash, the NTSB and the FAA worked with a team headed by famed meteorologist Ted Fujita, inventor of the Fujita scale of tornado intensity, to understand the mechanics of wind shear. Eastern 66 acknowledged the transmission. Turning one seven zero, six six three good night. . On June 24, 1975, Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 from New Orleans crashed on final approach to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Furthermore, controllers were judging wind conditions based on readings from a single anemometer located half way down the runway, and apparently did not appreciate the fact that in stormy conditions, wind speed and direction could vary significantly just between the location of the anemometer and the point of touchdown, let alone further back along the approach path. [1][2] Take-off proceeded normally, and the airport control tower prepared to hand over control to the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) on Long Island, noting that Flight 663 was executing a "Dutch seven departure", a routine takeoff procedure that required a series of turns over the Atlantic Ocean to avoid flying over New York City. :2 At 15:59, the controller warned all aircraft of "a severe wind shift" on final approach, and advised that more information would be reported shortly. The aircraft was on an ILS approach to the runway through a very strong thunderstorm that was located astride the ILS localizer course. :2 Because of the deteriorating weather, one of the crew members checked the weather at LaGuardia Airport in Flushing, Queens, the flight's alternate airport. The controller looked at the reading from the single anemometer measuring wind speed for both runways 22R and 22L. [c] Of the 124 people on board, 107 passengers and six crew members (including all four flight crew members) were killed. The airplane was dispatched at Dade-Collier Airport for a local training flight, carrying one instructor and four pilots under supervision. Eastern 902 replied, "Yeah, we were on course and down to about 250 feet. The captain's failure to maintain a proper descent rate on final approach or to execute a missed approach, which caused the airplane to contact the runway with a sink rate exceeding the airplane's design limitations. Eastern 66 acknowledged the clearance at 16:00:54, "Okay, we'll let you know about the conditions." The crash revealed fatal shortcomings in the way everyone in the industry understood and communicated about severe weather. The first officer of Eastern 66 then said, "Gonna keep a pretty healthy margin on this one. But the crash really did spark an underappreciated safety revolution that still affects everyone who flies. Ahead of them, two other planes flew through a thunderstorm just off the end of the runway, encountering violent winds that nearly sent both aircraft plummeting into the ground. On the 24th of June 1975, the crew of an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 lined up to land on runway 22L at New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport. But Captain Klevens attention was elsewhere. The aircraft struck larger trees, broke up, and burst into flames. Weissman Center for International Business, Baruch College/CUNY 2021, Staten Island and Park Slope Crashes (1960). One of the planes, Eastern [1]:2 At 15:52, the approach controller warned all incoming aircraft that the airport was experiencing "very light rain showers and haze" and zero visibility, and that all approaching aircraft would need to land using instrument flight rules. The crew technically could have asked to land on a different runway, but this could cause a delay of up to 30 minutes while air traffic control found a safe route for them through all the other traffic. The local controller first became aware of the severe wind shear when Flying Tiger Line flight 161 reported it moments after landing. This accident led to the development of the original low level wind shear alert system by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in 1976, which was installed at 110 FAA towered airports between 1977 and 1987. Traffic, 2 o'clock, five miles, northeast-bound, below you. And most horrifyingly of all, the study observed microbursts containing wind shear so violent that it exceeded the ability of any aircraft to recover control. Air traffic controllers today receive detailed weather information gleaned from a variety of sources including many sensors located around the airport, allowing them to quickly make informed decisions about where to direct traffic and what runways to designate for takeoffs and landings. A downdraft concurrent with a decreasing headwind will exacerbate its effects even further. While the Eastern Air Lines Boeing 727 was approaching JFKs runway 22L, it was faced with a strong headwind of 25 knots. The last radio transmission from the flight was the acknowledgement, "Alright," at 07:33:46. The explosion caused debris to fly in the surrounding area While Eastern 902 was making this report, the captain of Eastern 66, said, "You know this is asinine." They had no idea that the Finnair DC-8 landed during a relative lull, and only got through safely by increasing their airspeed significantly. Pilots who recognized the wind shear early generally made it through, but those who recognized it too late, or who were insufficiently aggressive in their response, did not. itself for an oncoming thunderstorm. At 2330, the controller advised the ILS glide slope (g/s) had gone into 'alarm' but the loc appeared normal.

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