John F. Kennedy International Airport - Accidents and Incidents

Accidents and Incidents

JFK has been the site of several notable aviation accidents and incidents.

• On October 19, 1953, an Eastern Airlines flight from Idlewild International Airport (the former name of JFK) to San Juan, Puerto Rico, operated by Lockheed L-749A Constellation N119A crashed on take-off. Two passengers were killed.
• December 18, 1954 – a Linee Aeree Italiane Douglas DC-6 crashed on its fourth approach attempt to land at Idlewild, after circling for 2.5 hours. 26 of the 32 passengers on board were killed.
• November 10, 1958 – Vickers Viscount, CF-TGL of Trans-Canada Air Lines was destroyed by fire after it was struck by Lockheed L-749 Super Constellation N6503C of Seaboard & Western Airlines which had crashed on take-off.
• December 16, 1960 – a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 bound for Idlewild collided with a TWA Super Constellation bound for La Guardia; the United jet crashed in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the TWA plane on Staten Island, killing 127 people on board and five on the ground.
• March 1, 1962 – American Airlines Flight 1, a Boeing 707 crashed on takeoff from Idlewild after its rudder separated from the tail. All 95 passengers and 12 crew members were killed.
• November 30, 1962 – an Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-7 crashed into the ground during a missed approach.
• February 8, 1965 – an Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-7 crashed off Jones Beach after takeoff when the pilots found themselves on an apparent collision course with an inbound Pan Am Boeing 707 and made evasive maneuvers.
• 1967 – The Air France Robbery targeted $420,000 in cash brought in as Air France cargo, Lucchese crime family associates Henry Hill, Robert McMahon, Tommy DeSimone and Montague Montemurro carried out the robbery.
• September 8, 1970 – a Trans International Airlines DC-8-63CF ferry flight to Dulles International Airport crashed on takeoff from runway 13R, killing all 11 crewmembers on board. The DC-8 freighter started rotating in a nose-high attitude 1,500 feet (460 m) into the take-off. After becoming airborne at 2,800 feet (850 m) down the runway, the aircraft climbed to about 300–500 feet, rolled 20 degrees to the left, crashed and caught fire. The loss of pitch control was caused by the entrapment of a pointed, asphalt-covered object between the leading edge of the right elevator and the right horizontal spar web access door in the aft part of the stabilizer.
• December 1, 1974 – Northwest Orient Flight 6231 a Boeing 727 chartered to pick up the Baltimore Colts in Buffalo crashed near Thiells, New York. The flight departed John F. Kennedy International Airport with only the cockpit crew on board. The pitot heat was not turned on and the tube iced over during climb out making the airspeed readings unreliable. The plane stalled passing 23,000' and the crew was unable to regain control. All 3 crewmembers on board were killed.
• June 24, 1975 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 66, a Boeing 727 on final approach from New Orleans, crashed into the runway lights short of runway 22L, killing 112 passengers and crew. The cause of the crash was wind shear during a heavy thunderstorm.
• December 11, 1978 – The Lufthansa heist targeted over $5 million in cash and jewels on a Lufthansa flight arriving from Germany. The crime was planned by Jimmy Burke, an associate of the Lucchese crime family, and carried out by several of his associates; at the time, it was the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil.
• January 25, 1990 – Avianca Flight 52, a Boeing 707-321B arriving from Bogotá and Medellin, crashed at Cove Neck, Long Island, after a missed approach to runway 22L at JFK and subsequently running out of fuel. 73 passengers and crew perished while 85 survived.
• July 30, 1992 – TWA Flight 843, a Lockheed L-1011 departing for San Francisco, aborted takeoff shortly after liftoff. There were no fatalities among the 280 passengers, although the aircraft was destroyed.
• July 17 1996 – TWA flight 800, a Boeing 747 departing JFK for Paris Charles de Gaulle in Paris, France, exploded after 12 and a half minutes in the air and crashed in the Atlantic Ocean near Long Island, New York. All 230 people on the flight were killed after a faulty wire transmitted a spark into the central fuel tank and, combined with heat and air, caused it to explode.
• November 12, 2001 – American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 crashed while en route to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. During climb, the aircraft lost most of its vertical fin due to overcontrol of the rudder while encountering wake turbulence with a Japan Airlines 747, and crashed into the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens. The crash killed all 260 people on the plane and five people on the ground.