American Airlines Flight 1 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from New York International (Idlewild) Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York City to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. During takeoff on March 1, 1962, the Boeing 707 rolled over and crashed into Jamaica Bay in New York City two minutes after taking off, killing all 87 passengers and eight crew members aboard. A Civil Aeronautics Board investigation determined that a manufacturing defect in the autopilot system led to an uncommanded rudder control system input, causing the accident. A number of notable people died in the crash. It was the fifth fatal Boeing 707 accident, and at the time, the deadliest. It was the third of three fatal crashes during an operation of American Airlines Flight 1, and the third fatal crash involving one of American's 707s in the New York area within a three-year period after Flight 514 and Flight 1502, all of which yielded no survivors.

Flight and crash

The aircraft was a Boeing 707-123B, registered as N7506A. It was the 12th Boeing 707 manufactured and was delivered to American Airlines on February 12, 1959. At the time of the crash, it had accumulated 8,147 flight hours. Its last periodic inspection had occurred on January 18, 1962, at 7,922 hours.

The aircraft received instructions to taxi to Runway 31L at 09:54 EST, and clearance to proceed to Los Angeles nonstop under instrument flight rules (IFR) at 10:02. The aircraft became airborne at 10:07. Following American Airlines procedures and departure control instructions, the aircraft initiated a left turn to a heading of 290°.

The aircraft crashed into a remote area of marshland on Jamaica Bay used as a wildlife sanctuary. The three-alarm fire was under control by 10:50, when only wreckage remained.

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  • Admiral Richard Lansing Conolly, USN (retired), president of Long Island University and two-time Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, and his wife Helen
  • George T. Felbeck, retired president of Union Carbide and former operations manager of Oak Ridge, Tennessee's uranium enrichment plant, travelling the day after he retired.
  • W. Alton Jones, multimillionaire, former president and chairman of Cities Service Company and close personal friend of Dwight D. Eisenhower: Jones was found to be carrying $55,690 in cash, including a rare $10,000 bill.

Federal investigation

The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) received notification of the accident at 10:10&nbsp;a.m. and immediately sent investigators to Jamaica Bay to conduct an investigation. The flight recorder was found on March 9 and sent to Washington, DC, for analysis. Public hearings were held at the International Hotel in New York on March 20–23, 1962.

In January 1963, the CAB released its aircraft accident report stating that the "most likely abnormality" to have caused the crash was a short circuit caused by wires in the automatic piloting system that had been damaged in the manufacturing process. It stated that the probable cause of the accident was "...rudder control system malfunction producing yaw, sideslip, and roll leading to a loss of control from which recovery was not effective" The Bendix Corporation issued denials, stating that the units underwent 61 inspections during manufacturing, in addition to inspections during installation and maintenance work, and insisted that had the insulation on the wires been breached at some point, it would have surely been detected and the unit replaced.

  • The crash serves as the central plot element in the 2008 Mad Men episode "Flight 1".
  • The accident is mentioned in Chapter 21 of the Dean Koontz novel, From the Corner of His Eye.

See also

  • Aviation safety
  • List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft
  • American Airlines Flight 1 (1936)
  • American Airlines Flight 1 (1941)

References

  • Another picture of the ill-fated 707
  • A picture of the rudder of the accident aircraft