December 12, 2019

Death From the Skies Over Brooklyn

December 12, 2019

Disaster visited New York City on a cold, snowy, gray morning nine days before Christmas in 1960.

Minutes earlier, people were going about their business, shopping for the holidays, working in stores and grabbing coffee from a deli. A man on the corner was hawking Christmas trees.

Suddenly, at about 10:30 a.m., on December 16, 1960, United Airlines Flight 826 out of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport bound for Idlewild (now JFK) plunged from the sky near the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It broke into jagged pieces after slamming into the street with an ear-splitting thud and exploded several times, killing all 84 people aboard and six others on the street, including a customer in the deli and the man selling Christmas trees.

Remains of United DC-8 at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. Department of Sanitation Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Most of the plane landed a block off Flatbush Avenue, not far from Eastern Parkway, destroying and setting ablaze a church—ironically named Pillar of Fire—several businesses and brownstones. The resulting fires—caused by a dark stream of leaked jet fuel—also ignited parked and moving cars and turned the quiet neighborhood into the scene of what was then the nation's worst air disaster.

Crash site of TWA Lockheed L-1049, Miller Field, New Dorp, Staten Island, December 16, 1960. NYPD Aerial Unit Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

What was not immediately known was that the airliner had been involved in a spectacular mid-air crash with a TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation about 10 miles away over Staten Island. That plane, TWA Flight 266, traveling from Dayton, Ohio to LaGuardia Airport carried 44 souls and crashed in a remote corner of Miller Field on Staten Island. All aboard were killed. No one on the ground was injured.

The city’s Municipal Archives holds a half-dozen photographs from that fateful day as well as 16 minutes of sometimes frantic radio reports from the scene in Brooklyn that tell the story.

The radio dispatches describe the chaotic scene that covered several blocks of what was then a thickly populated middle-class neighborhood in brownstone Brooklyn. They include reporters phoning in original reports and updates, and interviews with police and fire officials, a Catholic priest, and several witnesses. The reports noted that the plane narrowly missed two nearby gas stations, which would have made the fires much worse, and a nearby Catholic school holding about 1,000 students, which would have made it an even deadlier tragedy.

Aerial view of the crash site at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. NYPD Aerial Unit Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Here are some transcripts of the reports, which began shortly after the crash and continued throughout the day. The first reports are from a highly-excited and somewhat frantic WNYC Radio reporter describing the scene in staccato-like tones.

Remains of United DC-8 at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. Borough President Brooklyn Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“Some time ago, a large Voyager plane, apparently a United Airline plane, fell from the sky into an area of three-family houses in this vicinity at this moment” in an area whose size “is impossible to (quickly) estimate,” he reported, noting that hundreds of firefighters, police officers, hospital and ambulance workers and other rescue workers had responded almost immediately. Some 200 off-duty firefighters rushed in to help as well.

Firefighters battling the blaze at Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, December 16, 1960. NYPD Aerial Unit Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

“Flames are now coming out of buildings and due to the cold and wind, the flames are being whipped up. Several bodies have already been taken away from the scene. Automobiles standing in the middle of the street have been burned and are being towed away,” he said. “It is impossible to estimate at this time how many people were involved, how many people were aboard the plane or were in houses in the area who have lost their lives or were injured by this holocaust.... We will bring you further reports from the scene of this plane crash as soon as they are available.”

The reports soon continued with an update from an emergency official at the scene on the number of rescue personnel frantically working. The reporter then asked the official, who he addressed as General: “Would you say this is a major disaster?” The official demurred, saying it would be up to “the governor or the mayor” to declare an emergency. “Is this one of the worst air crashes you’ve seen,” the reporter asked gamely. The official responded: “Yes, it’s one of the worst I’ve seen.”

The reporter then cut away. A few moments later, he resumed with an excited update, noting that police were trying to keep the gathering crowd orderly. Firefighters were pouring “tons and tons of water onto the burning structures” and he noted there were “charred bodies” lying in the street. “Dozens of cameramen are out there shooting this fantastic scene. It certainly is a major disaster at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place... thick, swirling, choking smoke, which is so much in evidence in the area. Downtown Brooklyn indeed is the scene of a major holocaust.” He then signed off for the moment as “Jay Levy.”

He soon returned with an interview of a local priest who had witnessed the disaster. “I was about to go into the rectory. I looked up and saw something that looked very silvery coming down... Then there was a loud report. I ran around the corner and the whole street was in flames,” the clergyman said. The reporter then asked: “Father, was there a tremendous explosion?” “There was,” the priest answered. “At one time, the flames were shooting about 50 feet in the air.... People were running around. There was pandemonium.... Obviously there were people in the houses on both sides of the street who were killed.... It crashed into an automobile that was passing by, killing the driver, I understand.” He said he saw rescue crews take six bodies “from the plane itself.”

Soon after, came another report from a different newsman, who was much calmer and identified himself as being with the WNYC Mobile Unit. “We’re talking to you from the scene of the plane crash in Brooklyn at Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place. At least 200 people live in that area. A United Airlines four-engine plane fell from the sky into a church and several other buildings. The church was demolished. Several other buildings are completely afire and heavy smoke is blanketing the area.

“There are unconfirmed reports that there were 77 passengers aboard the plane. We have seen charred bodies taken away from the area and put into a tent.... We’ve also seen people taken from houses in the area. The plane barely missed two gasoline garages in the area and plunged into the church, demolishing it. Ironically, the name of the church is Pillar of Fire.” He said police were keeping the crowds and reporters from the scene, but he could see the tail of the plane and other debris down the block. He noted that Mayor Robert Wagner, Police Commissioner Steven Kennedy and Fire Commissioner Edward Cavanaugh were at the scene monitoring the situation.

He said it was “hard to imagine” how anyone survived the crash, but a witness told him that an 11-year-old boy who had been a passenger on the plane had fallen to the ground and landed in a snowbank—and miraculously was still alive. He was badly burned and in shock and was rushed to Kings County Hospital in serious condition. The boy, later identified as Steven Baltz from Wilmette, Illinois, died the next day from his burns and complications from pneumonia.

“The scene on this street is quite a familiar one to anyone who has seen wartime destruction. We have seen charred bodies taken away. We have seen people in houses surrounding the area in shock being taken away.”

In the final report in the Archives, about 20 minutes later, the reporter noted that investigators from the Civil Aeronautics Board were on the scene and were planning to block off the complete area for a few days. Bodies were removed to Kings County Morgue and there was no danger of the five-alarm fire spreading any further.

Reporters on the scene in Brooklyn, including a young Gabe Pressman, were unaware that another plane was involved—since this was many decades before the Internet and cell phones. The next day’s newspapers told that part of the story.

A three-deck headline in The New York Times exclaimed:

127 DIE AS 2 AIRLINES COLLIDE OVER CITY

JET SETS BROOKLYN FIRE KILLING FIVE OTHERS

SECOND PLANE CRASHES ON STATEN ISLAND

Officials reported that the collision took place over Staten Island about 10 miles away. While the smaller Lockheed plane went down directly, the United aircraft managed to stay aloft for about 90 seconds before plunging down in Park Slope. Investigators determined that the United plane was going too fast—about 350 miles per hour or about 100 mph faster than he should have been—and was about 12 miles off course, causing the accident that left blocks of Park Slope scarred for decades.

Stuart Marques

October 18, 2019

The Empire State Plane Crash, July 28, 1945

Stuart Marques

October 18, 2019

A dense fog crept across the slate gray New York City sky on Saturday July 28, 1945. The war in Europe was largely over, V-E Day had been declared about seven weeks earlier, and the fall of Japan was near. The city was going about its business shortly before 10 a.m., when a US Army bomber plane carrying a pilot and two other men from Bedford, Massachusetts to LaGuardia Airport made a wrong turn and slammed into the north side of the Empire State Building about 935 feet above the street.

The building topped 1,200 feet, so the plane, which was going more than 200 miles per hour, rammed through the 78th and 79th floors with tremendous force, sending an elevator plummeting 75 floors and triggering three separate heavy fires.

Empire State Building Disaster: Interior, 12:40 pm; 79th Floor, showing hole in wall where plane crashed, July 28, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The pilot and the two other men in the plane—including a Navy machinist from Brooklyn—were killed instantly and 11 people in the building or on the ground died. The crash triggered a brief panic, launched several investigations and drew both praise and condemnation of the City’s feisty Mayor, Fiorello La Guardia.

Telegrams, letters, secret communications between the City and Washington, and a detailed and heavily-illustrated Fire Department report in the Municipal Library and Archives recount the events of that dark day.

At approximately 9:50 a.m., the pilot of the doomed B-25 Mitchell Aircraft, William F. Smith Jr., radioed the La Guardia Tower saying the plane was about 15 miles south of LaGuardia and asked about the weather at nearby Newark Airport. Following procedure, the LaGuardia Tower told the pilot to call Newark for the local weather.

“Within two minutes, this plane showed up directly southeast of LaGuardia and (LaGuardia Tower chief Operator Victor) Barden believing it intended to land, gave it runway, wind direction and velocity,” the memo read. “The pilot stated he wanted to go to Newark.”

Empire State Building Disaster: Interior, 79th Fl. 12:55 pm, July 28, 1945. Hole in south wall where plane crashed into elevators. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Airways Traffic Control radioed that the weather at Newark was 600 feet ceiling and said the plane should land at LaGuardia. Since it was a bomber, the tower contacted Army Advisory, which said visibility was a little better than that and the tower asked the pilot what he wanted to do.

Smith, a West Point graduate who had completed 42 missions in Europe during the war, made the fateful decision to proceed to Newark. The tower then cleared him to land at Newark, but noted they were “unable to see the top of the Empire State Building” and warned the pilot that if he did not have three miles of forward visibility, he should return to LaGuardia.

But visibility was near zero and the pilot apparently became disoriented, turned the wrong way after skirting the Chrysler Building on 42nd Street and almost immediately slammed into the north side of the Empire State Building. The first fire alarm was pulled at 9:52 a.m. and Mayor LaGuardia quickly rushed to the scene amid arriving fire trucks, ambulances and police cars.

Empire State Building Disaster: Interior, W side of 79th Fl, facing E; 12:30 pm, July 28, 1945. Firemen walking through rubble in rear. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

An extensive Fire Department report issued by Commissioner Patrick Walsh on August 21, 1945, picks up the story, reporting that the plane hit between the 78th and 79th floors with such tremendous force that it made an 18-by-20-foot hole in what was then the tallest building in the world. One engine flew through the south side of the building and landed a block away atop the roof of a factory on West 33rd St. The other engine plummeted down an elevator shaft and triggered a fire that lasted more than 40 minutes.

“The wreckage of a giant aircraft that had carried a large supply of gasoline and tanks of oxygen giving added furor to the blasting fire … scattered death and flames over a wide area,” Walsh wrote. “Elevator service to the scene of the fire, some 935 feet above the street, had been disrupted. Parts of a hurtling motor and other sections of the plane that passed entirely through the structure had brought fire to the roof and top floor of a thirteen-story building across the street from the scene of the original tragedy. A third fire had developed in the basement and sub-basement of the Empire Building itself.”

Empire State Building Disaster: Interior, S corner, 79th Fl., facing N; 12:05 pm, July 28, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Walsh wrote that the fires were brought under control in 19 minutes and were extinguished within 40 minutes. But, he added, “life hazard was very severe. Persons had been trapped on the 78th and many more on the 79th floor. Persons on the 80th and other floors were exposed to considerable smoke and heat. There was a dangerous possibility of panic among the people in the building.”

Empire State Building Disaster: Basement, 2:40 pm, looking NW, July 28, 1945. Elevator pit, parts of plane. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

In a letter accompanying his report, Walsh praised the Mayor for getting to the scene quickly and making sure that accurate information got out to the public to prevent widespread panic. “Your presence at the scene with its attendant acceptance of the risks and rigors of the situation was very impressive and gave testimony to the cooperation that this department has received from you during past years.”

Miraculously, elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived the 75-story elevator shaft plunge, in what the Guinness Book of Records would later proclaim “The Longest Fall Survived in an Elevator.” Soon after the horrific accident, as firefighters were still rushing up to the 77th floor to fight the blaze, Army Lt. General Ira Eaker, Deputy Commander of the Army Air Forces, fired off a hand-delivered note to Mayor LaGuardia “to express the concern of the Army Air Forces for the unfortunate accident which occurred at the Empire State Building this morning.”

He vowed to cooperate with city and federal agencies “to ensure a complete and thorough investigation of the circumstances … It is our keenest desire that everything humanly possible be done for those who have suffered in this unfortunate and regrettable accident and we shall leave nothing undone which lies in our power to that end.”

Empire State Building Disaster: Interior, S corner, 79th Fl. Offices; charred bodies on desk in background.; 11:50 am, July 28, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The next day’s papers—from coast-to-coast—blared the story across their front pages. The New York Daily News story began: “A fog-blind B-25 Mitchell bomber, groping its way southward across Manhattan to Newark Airport crashed into the 79th-floor of the 1,250-foot Empire State Building … turning the world’s tallest building into a torch in the sky high above 34th St. and Fifth Avenue.” That morning the Mayor took to the airwaves with his Talk to the People program, offered condolences to the families of all the victims and read Lt. Gen. Eaker’s letter aloud. (LT2545)

The Archives holds a July 31 story in the Daily Mirror that lent an eerie quality to the story. It started: “The charred remains of the dead … in the Empire State Building tragedy were identified yesterday while souvenir seekers and looters had a ghoulish field day among the debris.” The story said looters invaded the 79th floor offices of the National Catholic Welfare Conference and stole charred stationary and $400 in cash. The thief dropped a bag holding $8,000 in Travelers Checks when police spotted him and gave chase. The owner of the Hicckock Belt Company told cops someone stole $300 worth of belts, suspenders and wallets.

Empire State Building Disaster: 34th Street, showing parts of plane on N side of street; 1:20 pm, July 28, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Despite the damage, much of the building was open for business on the Monday two days after the accident. The crash also led to creation of the Federal Tort Claims Act and brought calls from military and aviation experts for better training and safety rules. Brigadier General Robert Travis blamed a rash of accidents on a “lack of knowledge of equipment, lack of discipline and plain bullheadedness.”

Mayor LaGuardia added to the furor over the accident when he told the Herald Tribune he thought the pilot was flying too low, given the number of skyscrapers in Midtown. In response to one critical letter to the mayor, Goodhue Livingston Jr., LaGuardia’s executive secretary, noted that if the pilot “had maintained the proper altitude when flying over Manhattan the accident would not have occurred. Unfortunately, some of our Army Pilots who have been coming into our municipal fields during this war emergency period have on occasion have [sic] not maintained the proper safe altitude.”

The Empire State Building as it was in 1940, with a much shorter midtown. Department of Finance Tax Photo Collection.

An August 13 letter from H.H. Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, backed up LaGuardia. Arnold said there was no evidence the plane had malfunctioned, and he clearly pinned the blame on the pilot.

“It appears that the pilot used poor judgment,” Arnold wrote, adding that Smith did not maintain the altitude and did not have the minimum visibility to go to Newark. “He had been warned by the LaGuardia Tower that the top of the Empire State Building could not be seen. Therefore, it may be assumed that he was mistaken in his establishment of his position with respect to the Lower Manhattan area.” Arnold said the military had taken measures to avoid a similar accident in the future by better communication between the military and air traffic control and by establishing local traffic routes for Army aircraft in the metropolitan area.

Unfortunately, less than a year later it happened again. On May 20, 1946, an U.S. Army Air Forces Beechcraft C-45F Expediter slammed into the north side of the 925-foot-high building at 40 Wall Street in a heavy fog. All five crew members were killed.

Death From the Skies Over Brooklyn

The Empire State Plane Crash, July 28, 1945

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