Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 was a domestic flight in the US from

Newark Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-the ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

on May 30, 1947. The flight crashed near Bainbridge, Maryland, causing the deaths of all 53 passengers and crew on board in what was then the worst disaster in the history of North American commercial aviation.

Accident flight

Flight 605 departed from Newark International Airport at 17:04 for a scheduled domestic flight to Miami. It climbed to its assigned cruising altitude of . While flying over Philadelphia, the pilot reported "all is well". At 17:41, people on the ground saw Flight 605 enter a steepening dive and crash east of Bainbridge. All four crew and 49 passengers died in the crash. At the time, Flight 605 was the deadliest crash in United States aviation history. Eastern_Airlines_Flight_605_Crash_Site

Cause

The Civil Aviation Board's investigation of the crash determined that the probable cause of this accident was a sudden loss of control, for reasons unknown, resulting in a dive to the ground. In his book ''

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Ernest K. Gann Ernest Kellogg Gann (October 13, 1910 – December 19, 1991) was an American aviator, author, sailor, and conservationist. He is best known for his novels and memoirs about early aviation and nautical adventures. Some of his more famous aviation ...

suggests that the crash was caused by unporting of the elevators due to a missing hinge bolt, Gann having narrowly avoided a similar fate himself on the same day.

Aircraft

The DC-4 aircraft, serial number 18380, was built in 1944 and was delivered officially as a C-54B Skymaster to the United States Air Force in October 1944. On the same day it was transferred with the designation R5D-2 to the United States Navy. It was leased to Eastern Air Lines on November 29, 1945 as fleet number 708.

References

External links

Report
- Civil Aeronautics Board
PDF
{{coord, 39.614166, -76.060632, type:event_globe:earth_region:US-MD, display=title Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1947 Airliner accidents and incidents in Maryland Airliner accidents and incidents with an unknown cause Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-4

605 Year 605 ( DCV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 605 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the pr ...

1947 in Maryland Cecil County, Maryland May 1947 events in the United States