The accident was the deadliest single-aircraft accident in United States history to date, and would remain so until the 1979 crash of American Airlines Flight 191. The victims included New York Nets player Wendell Ladner, Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana Iveson B. Noland, and construction executive Saul Horowitz Jr.
Investigation and results
The accident was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which revealed that minutes before Flight 66's crash, a Flying Tiger Line Douglas DC-8 cargo jet landing on Runway 22L reported tremendous wind shear on the ground. The pilot warned the tower of the wind-shear conditions, but other aircraft continued to land. After the DC-8 landed, an Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 landing on the same runway nearly crashed. Two more aircraft landed before Flight 66 attempted its landing. 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.
<blockquote>The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the aircraft's encounter with adverse winds associated with a very strong thunderstorm located astride the ILS localizer course, which resulted in high descent rate into the non-frangible approach light towers. The flight crew's delayed recognition and correction of the high descent rate were probably associated with their reliance upon visual cues rather than on flight instrument reference. However, the adverse winds might have been too severe for a successful approach and landing even had they relied upon and responded rapidly to the indications of the flight instruments. The accident also led to the discovery of downbursts, a weather phenomenon that creates vertical wind shear and poses dangers to landing aircraft, and it sparked decades of research into downburst and microburst phenomena and their effects on aircraft.
The concept of downbursts was not yet understood when Flight 66 crashed. 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. Fujita identified "cells of intense downdrafts" during the storm that caused aircraft flying through them "considerable difficulties in landing." Fujita named this phenomenon "downburst cells" and determined that a plane can be "seriously affected" by "a downburst of air current."
See also
- Aviation safety
- List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft
- 1956 Kano Airport BOAC Argonaut crash
- Delta Air Lines Flight 191
- USAir Flight 1016
- Aeromexico Connect Flight 2431
- Pan Am Flight 759 - another fatal crash caused by wind shear which took off from New Orleans International Airport
- Martinair Flight 495
- United Nations Flight 834
- 1950 Air France multiple Douglas DC-4 accidents