Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 was a controlled flight into terrain 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 Charlotte Douglas International Airport (IATA: CLT, ICAO: KCLT, FAA LID: CLT), typically referred to as Charlotte Douglas, Douglas Airport, or simply CLT, is an international airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, located roughly six miles we ...

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 to Chicago O'Hare, with an intermediate stop in Charlotte. An investigation by the

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and inci ...

(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 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,

James William Colbert Jr. James William Colbert Jr. (December 15, 1920 – September 11, 1974) was an American physician and the first vice president of academic affairs at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), serving in this capacity from 1969 until his deat ...

, and two of his sons; they were the father and brothers of future television personality Stephen Colbert."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 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

(NTSB) reviewed the cockpit voice recorder (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 instrument approach 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 on January 13, 1982. The FAA, after more than six years of consideration, finally published the

sterile cockpit rule In aviation, the sterile flight deck rule or sterile cockpit rule is a procedural requirement that during critical phases of flight (normally below ), only activities required for the safe operation of the aircraft may be carried out by the fligh ...

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 (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 Synthetic fibers or synthetic fibres (in British English; see spelling differences) are fibers made by humans through chemical synthesis, as opposed to natural fibers that are directly derived from living organisms, such as plants (like cotton) ...

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, noted for his dark humour, 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