"We Got Troubles ..."
From the charred ruins of the crumpled United Air Lines DC-8 jetliner that crashed into Brooklyn last fortnight, federal investigators last week plucked part of the answer to events that brought on mid-air collision and the world's worst air disaster (TIME, Dec. 26). The story was etched on the metal tape of the crashproof flight recorder that the DC-8--like all jets--carried under federal regulations. Translated, the taped squiggles showed that the jet, bound for New York's Idlewild terminal from Chicago, made a steep descent from 14,000 to 5,000 ft. as it approached the Preston holding area in New Jersey (see map), sped through Preston on instruments at speeds as high as 360 knots (v. standard jet holding speed of 220 knots). At that speed, it closed the distance between Preston and the instrument traffic approach for La Guardia Airport in i min., 51 sec. And at that speed, at an altitude of 5,400 ft., it collided with TWA's Super Constellation Flight 266, from Dayton and Columbus, approaching La Guardia Airport under instructions from the La Guardia tower.
"We'll Dump It." Tape recordings of conversation between air-traffic controllers and the planes supported the flight recorder's squiggles. After clearing the jet for descent from 14,000 ft. at Allentown, Pa. to 5,000 ft. at the Preston marker, Air Route Traffic Control Center at Idlewild asked: "Look like you'll be able to make Preston at five?" Replied the jet: "Will head it right on down; we'll dump it." Minutes later, the jet was calling Idlewild Approach Control, reporting '"proaching Preston at 5,000." Approach responded with weather and landing instructions. The DC-8 never answered.
Meanwhile, La Guardia tower was following the Constellation on its radar, radioed one warning of "traffic at two-thirty, six miles northeast bound," and then another of "what appears to be jet traffic off your right now, 3 o'clock at one mile northeast bound." The only response from the Connie, after the second warning, was the sound of an open microphone; the rest was silence.
Dribbling Blip. In the heat-charged moments that followed, Idlewild and La Guardia radio crackled away at each other, trying desperately to locate the Connie that had suddenly disappeared from the radarscopes over Staten Island and to identify the strange "unknown plane" that was dribbling as a blip across Brooklyn on the scopes.
La Guardia: All right now, we got troubles, but we're not sure of it. We lost contact with a TWA Two Six Six ... He was on a collision course with an aircraft, an unknown aircraft, heading northeast from Preston toward Flatbush. That aircraft now is a mile outside the La Guardia outer marker, heading northeast bound . . .
Idlewild: It could be ours on approach control, New York.
La Guardia: Yeah, well what type aircraft is that?
Idlewild: A United DC-8.
La Guardia: And what's his altitude?
Idlewild: He was last cleared to 5,000.
La Guardia: Oh boy, our man was at five too.
From examination of the debris, investigators found that the jet was in a 50DEG bank to the right at the moment of impact--so steep a bank that it seemed as if the jet pilot had seen the TWA plane and had tried to turn away. The jet's No. 4 engine, the federal men found, crashed through the Connie's cockpit, sucking human tissue into its compressor chamber. The engine was found with the Connie's wreckage on Staten Island.
Tempers flared as half a dozen agencies continued with the sad business of investigation. Anguished William Patterson, president of United Air Lines, raised a question as to whether FAA's own facility, the all-important Preston radio signals, had been operating normally. FAA was prepared to offer evidence that its own plane --as well as others--had checked the signals within hours of the crash and found them functioning. If FAA was right, the big question of the collision was still when and how an experienced pilot could get so far off course without taking corrective action.
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