Holocaust at LaGuardia

A black line-squall loomed in the northwest and lightning flared from cloud to cloud as United Airlines Cleveland-bound Flight 521, 44 passengers, four crew, trundled away from the LaGuardia Field ramp on the eve of Memorial Day. As he taxied out to the far side of the field, 38-year-old Captain Benton R. ("Lucky") Baldwin was cleared for takeoff. The control tower gave him his choice of two runways--No. 13 or No. 18.* He picked the shortest, No. 18; it was only 3,533 feet long but it pointed directly into the brisk, 18 m.p.h. south wind.

It was 8:04 and dusk when he finished his last check of controls and engines. He taxied out to the head of No. 18. The line-squall was moving closer to the field. Baldwin could look into its black heart as he turned his four-engined craft into the wind. The tower gave the go-ahead. Baldwin shoved his throttles open. The big ship began to roll, accelerated, began eating up footage on the blurring runway. It flashed 500, 1,000, 1,500 feet, it got up to a speed of 100 m.p.h. Still it did not get off the ground. Warned of danger by every instinct, Baldwin kept trying to lift his 30 tons of hurtling, streamlined metal. Nothing happened.

Moment of Decision. As he passed the 2,000-ft. mark with his engines turning at full take-off power, he faced one of a pilot's most critical decisions. Should he use the rest of the runway in trying to get off? Or should he obey the classic flying rule that it is safer to plough through a fence on the ground than to push through, a bad takeoff?

Baldwin chopped his throttles, shoved down on his brakes. But he had only 1,000 feet of pavement left and the 60,319-lb. plane kept going. He tried desperately to groundloop to the left. Instead, it would not turn. The plane plunged straight on, tires screeching, tore down 100 feet of fence at the end of the field, lifted a little and skimmed the earth like a skipped stone.

A motorist on Grand Central Parkway beyond the end of the runway saw it coming and dived for his automobile's floorboards. One of the DC-4's massive, spinning wheels banged across the top of his car, bent it down a full six inches, left him unhurt. The plane lurched on, shearing off light poles, slammed back to earth, slid with a crash of metal, and stopped beside a stagnant pond. Then it burst into flames.

Hero with an Ax. Bleeding and burned, Baldwin managed to open the cockpit escape hatch, dropped to the ground, staggered dazedly away. Rain began streaming down as the flames soared up in 50-ft. tongues. Baldwin started back--there were 47 people inside--and was held back by the gathering crowd. Firemen drove a fire engine through a wooden fence, attacked the fire. Then the hero of the crash--a 38-year-old New Yorker named Edward McGrath--arrived. He grabbed an ax, waded into the furnace heat, chopped a hole in the broken plane's duraluminum skin. He squeezed in & out seven times and hauled out seven people before he collapsed. Then firemen rescued three more.

But, as the distraught and wounded pilot watched, the flames roared higher. For a little while the stunned crowd could hear the screaming of the trapped men & women as they pounded against the sides of the fuselage. Then the metal glowed white hot and the sounds stopped. When the plane finally cooled, 37 charred bodies lay inside. Five other passengers died later, brought the total dead to 42.

Meanwhile, United Airlines got busy with a statement for the press. The accident, it said, was due to a "freak gust" in a wind shift that occurred with "unbelievable suddenness." Actually there was nothing very freakish about the sudden shift (see diagram) that put the wind on Pilot Baldwin's tail and thus prolonged his take-off run. Sudden wind shifts often occur in front of thunderstorms.

The basic explanation was that Runway 18, only 3,533 feet long, was too short for the take-off of any modern airliner except under ideal circumstances, e.g., a steady head wind of around 35 m.p.h. Because it was short, it robbed Pilot Baldwin of any chance to save his plane from disaster. Runway 18 has been often used, by many airlines; the law of averages was certain, sooner or later, to catch up with one of their pilots.

*Airport runways are numbered to indicate the compass course on which they run. Thus, Runway 18 points south (180 degrees from north).

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