United Air Lines Flight 608 was a

Douglas DC-6 The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with t ...

airliner An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ai ...

, registration NC37510, on a scheduled

passenger flight An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which ...

from

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

when it crashed at 12:29 pm on October 24, 1947 about southeast of Bryce Canyon Airport,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

.Accident Investigation Report, File No. 1-0097-47
None of the five crew members and 47 passengers on board survived. It was the first crash of a DC-6, and at the time, it was the second-deadliest air crash in the United States, surpassed by

Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 was a domestic flight in the US from Newark to Miami 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 t ...

by only one fatality.

Accident sequence

United Flight 608 departed from Los Angeles, California, at 10:23 am on a routine flight to Chicago, Illinois. At 12:21 pm, the airplane's pilot, Captain Everett L. McMillen, radioed that a fire was in the baggage compartment, which they could not control, with smoke entering the passenger cabin. The flight requested an emergency clearance to Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah, which was granted. As it descended, pieces of the airplane, including portions of the right wing, started to fall off, and one of the emergency flares on the wing ignited. At 12:27 pm, the last radio transmission was heard from the airplane: "We may make it – approaching a strip." Accounts from observers state the airplane passed over the canyon mesa, about from the airstrip. With gusts from the canyon floor flowing down the side of the mesa, the crippled aircraft, only off the ground, was pulled out of control and crashed. Ground observers reported that occupants of the airliner, prior to the impact, were throwing various items out of the cabin door in an attempt to lighten the load as the DC-6 descended over the canyon. The airliner crashed onto National Park Service land, killing all 52 passengers and crew on board. The October 25, 1947, edition of the ''

Bridgeport Post The ''Connecticut Post'' is a daily newspaper located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It serves Fairfield County and the Lower Naugatuck Valley. Municipalities in the Post's circulation area include Ansonia, Bridgeport, Darien, Derby, Easton ...

'' reported:

Cause of the crash

Just over three weeks later, on November 11, 1947, a similar in-flight incident almost claimed a second commercial DC-6 airliner. An

American Airlines American Airlines is a major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the largest airline in the world when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and revenue passeng ...

DC-6 (NC90741), on a flight from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

with 25 crew and passengers aboard, reported an on-board fire over Arizona and managed to make an emergency landing in flames at the airport at

Gallup, New Mexico Zuni: ''Kalabwaki'' , settlement_type = City , nickname = "Indian Capital of the World" , motto = , image_skyline = Gallup, New Mexico.jpg , imagesize = 250px , image_caption ...

. All 25 occupants escaped the burning plane, and the fire was extinguished. Unlike the Bryce Canyon crash a month earlier, investigators now had a damaged, but intact aircraft to examine and study. The cause of both the Bryce Canyon crash and the near-fatal Gallup incident was eventually traced to a design flaw. A cabin heater intake scoop was positioned too close to the number 3 alternate fuel tank air vent. If flight crews allowed a fuel tank to be overfilled during a routine fuel transfer between wing tanks, it could lead to several gallons of excess fuel flowing out of the tank vent and then being sucked into the cabin heater system, which then ignited the fuel. This caused the fire that destroyed the United aircraft at Bryce Canyon and severely damaged the American aircraft that landed in flames at Gallup. In the Bryce Canyon crash, the

Civil Aeronautics Board The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1938 and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services including scheduled passenger airline serviceStringer, David H."Non-Skeds: T ...

found the causes to be the design flaw, inadequate training of the crew about the danger, and the failure of the crew to halt the fuel transfer before the tank overflowed.

Aftermath

The aircraft wreckage was loaded onto trucks and moved to

Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated a ...

in California, where the airplane was reassembled in an effort to determine the cause of the crash. As a result of the disaster, the entire fleet of 80 Douglas DC-6 aircraft, including the U.S. President's aircraft (which was a sister ship), were ordered grounded and recalled. Design changes that were made thereafter still stand today.

References

External links

Report
from the

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PDF

"October 24, 1947, United Air Lines Inc., Douglas DC-6 (NC37510) Bryce Canyon, UT"
''lostflights.com'' – photo gallery
Various articles from The Deseret News, October 25, 1947

"Bryce Canyon, UT Plane Smashes Into Plateau, Oct 1947"
''gendisasters.com'' {{DEFAULTSORT:United Airlines Flight 0608 Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1947 1947 in Utah Airliner accidents and incidents in Utah Airliner accidents and incidents caused by in-flight fires 608 Disasters in Utah Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-6 Garfield County, Utah October 1947 events in the United States Bryce Canyon National Park

Accident sequence

Cause of the crash

Aftermath

See also

References

External links