Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 was a

controlled flight into terrain In aviation, a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT; usually ) is an accident in which an airworthy aircraft, under pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a mountain, a body of water or an obstacle. In a typical CFIT scenario, ...

accident of a

McDonnell Douglas DC-9 The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 is an American five-abreast single-aisle aircraft designed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was initially produced by the developer company as the Douglas DC-9 until August 1967 and then by McDonnell Douglas. Afte ...

during approach to Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina. The incident occurred on September 11, 1974, killing 72 of the 82 people on board. The scheduled flight was from

Charleston Municipal Airport Charleston Municipal Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport located two nautical miles (4 km) south of the central business district of Charleston, a city in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, United States. It is included in th ...

Chicago O'Hare Chicago O'Hare International Airport , sometimes referred to as, Chicago O'Hare, or simply O'Hare, is the main international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Loop busines ...

, with an intermediate stop in Charlotte. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that multiple crew errors were the primary cause of the crash.

Accident

On the morning of September 11, 1974, while conducting an

instrument approach In aviation, an instrument approach or instrument approach procedure (IAP) is a series of predetermined maneuvers for the orderly transfer of an aircraft operating under instrument flight rules from the beginning of the initial approach to a landi ...

in dense ground fog into Douglas Municipal Airport in Charlotte, the aircraft crashed at 7:34 am EDT more than short of Runway 36, killing 72 of the 82 on board. Thirteen survived the initial impact, including the first officer and one flight attendant, but three of the initial survivors ultimately died from severe burn injuriesFlorence Morning News South Carolina
, September 12, 1974. Archived at GenDisasters.com. Retrieved 2008-03-15. as late as 29 days after the accident. Among the fatalities was the vice president for academic affairs of the

Medical University of South Carolina The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is a public medical school in South Carolina. It opened in 1824 in Charleston as a small private college aimed at training physicians and has since established hospitals and medical facilities ac ...

, James William Colbert Jr., and two of his sons; they were the father and brothers of future television personality

Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program '' The Colbert Report'' from 2005 ...

."The Late, Great Stephen Colbert," ''GQ Magazine''
August 17, 2015

Aircraft and crew

N8983E DC-9-31 Eastern Air Lines JFK 09JUL70 (5593233530)

The aircraft was a five-year-old

McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 is an American five-abreast single-aisle aircraft designed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was initially produced by the developer company as the Douglas DC-9 until August 1967 and then by McDonnell Douglas. After ...

registered as N8984E, which was delivered to Eastern Airlines on January 30, 1969. The captain was 49-year-old James E. Reeves, who had been with the airline since 1956. He had 8,876 flight hours, including 3,856 hours on the DC-9. The first officer was 36-year-old James M. Daniels Jr. He had been with the airline since 1966 and had 3,016 flight hours, including 2,693 hours on the DC-9.

Crash investigation and recommendations

While investigating this accident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reviewed the

cockpit voice recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has ...

(CVR) and found that the flight crew had engaged in unnecessary and "nonpertinent" conversation during the approach phase of the flight, discussing subjects "ranging from politics to used cars." The NTSB concluded that conducting such nonessential chatter can distract pilots from their flying duties during the critical phases of flight, such as

to landing, and recommended that the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

(FAA) establish rules and educate pilots to focus exclusively on flying tasks while operating at low altitudes. It was later realized that this rule should also apply to takeoffs; for example, the lack of a sterile cockpit environment was a contributing factor to the crash of

Air Florida Flight 90 Air Florida Flight 90 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight operated by Air Florida from Washington National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) to Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, with an interme ...

on January 13, 1982. The FAA, after more than six years of consideration, finally published the sterile cockpit rule in 1981.The Sterile Cockpit
''NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System Directline'', #4 : June 1993. Robert L. Sumwalt. Retrieved 2007-04-22. The NTSB also found that the crew was apparently trying to visually locate the airport while executing an instrument approach in the presence of low-lying fog. In addition, a persistent attempt to visually identify the nearby Carowinds amusement park tower, known as "Carowinds Tower" to pilots, which rose to an elevation of , or

above ground level In aviation, atmospheric sciences and broadcasting, a height above ground level (AGL or HAGL) is a height measured with respect to the underlying ground surface. This is as opposed to height above mean sea level (AMSL or HAMSL), height above elli ...

(AGL), may have further distracted and confused the flight crew. The first officer was operating the flight controls, and none of the required altitude callouts were made by the captain, which compounded the flight crew's nearly total lack of altitude awareness. During the investigation, the issue of the flammability of passengers' clothing materials was raised. There was evidence that passengers who wore double-knit synthetic fiber clothing articles sustained significantly worse burn injuries during the post-crash fire than passengers who wore articles made from natural fibers. The NTSB released its final report on May 23, 1975, concluding that the accident was caused by the flight crew's lack of altitude awareness and poor cockpit discipline. The NTSB issued the following official probable cause:

Jimmy Carr joke

British comedian

Jimmy Carr James Anthony Patrick Carr (born 15 September 1972) is a British-Irish comedian, presenter, writer, and actor. He is known for his deadpan delivery of controversial one-liners and distinctive laugh, for which he has been both praised and criti ...

, noted for his

dark humour Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...

, tweeted about the incident on the tenth anniversary of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

as an act of misdirection, causing significant controversy:

Sept 11th Date of terrible air disaster. When Eastern Airlines Flt 212 crashed in 1974. Killing 69. No one will forget that in a hurry.

References

External links

Photo of aircraft N8984E taken in Miami, FL, on Feb. 1974, before the accidentArchive
{{Authority control Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Airliner accidents and incidents in North Carolina Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1974 1974 in North Carolina

212 Year 212 ( CCXII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Asper and Camilius (or, less frequently, year 965 '' Ab urbe condit ...