Northeast Airlines Flight 823 was a scheduled flight from

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Miami International Airport Miami International Airport , also known as MIA and historically as Wilcox Field, is the primary airport serving the greater Miami metropolitan area with over 1,000 daily flights to 167 domestic and international destinations, including most c ...

, Florida, which crashed shortly after takeoff on February 1, 1957. The aircraft operating the service 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 ...

four-engined propeller airliner,

registration Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...

which entered service in 1955.

Accident sequence

While originally scheduled to depart at 2:45pm, delays due to snowfall pushed departure back to 6:01pm. At takeoff, with a nearly full complement of 95 passengers and 6 crewmembers (3

flight crew Aircrew, also called flight crew, are personnel who operate an aircraft while in flight. The composition of a flight's crew depends on the type of aircraft, plus the flight's duration and purpose. Commercial aviation Flight deck positions ...

and 3

stewardess A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are prima ...

es), the plane weighed in at , just below maximum takeoff weight. Despite some sliding of the nosewheel on snow-covered pavement, the airplane was cleared to take off via

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...

04 (040° magnetic

heading Heading can refer to: * Heading (metalworking), a process which incorporates the extruding and upsetting processes * Headline, text at the top of a newspaper article * Heading (navigation), the direction a person or vehicle is facing, usually s ...

), departing to the northeast of the field. After what was described as a normal takeoff roll, the aircraft lifted off. Upon establishing a positive

rate of climb In aeronautics, the rate of climb (RoC) is an aircraft's vertical speed, that is the positive or negative rate of altitude change with respect to time. In most ICAO member countries, even in otherwise metric countries, this is usually expressed ...

, the landing gear and wing flaps were retracted, and the engine power was reduced to the maximum except for takeoff (METO) setting. The aircraft was now gaining altitude, flying on instruments without outside visibility as it headed over

Flushing Bay Flushing Bay is a tidal embayment in New York City. It is located on the south side of the East River and stretches to the south near the neighborhood of Flushing, Queens. It is bordered on the west by LaGuardia Airport and the Grand Central Park ...

. While the aircraft's clearance instructed that it proceed northeast on a heading of 40° (runway heading), the airplane began a gradual turn to the left. When it had reached a heading of 285° (nearly due west), it overflew Rikers Island. Its altitude was insufficient to clear the trees on the island, and the aircraft crashed, coming to rest within of the point of first impact. The duration of the flight from takeoff to crash was approximately 60 seconds. The crash resulted in 20 fatalities and 78 injuries among the passengers and several injuries but no fatalities among the crew.

Recovery

Shortly after the crash, Rikers Island department personnel and prison trusties (inmates whose good behavior had earned the guards' trust) alike ran to the crash in order to help survivors. As a result of their actions, of the 57 inmates who assisted with the rescue effort, 30 were released and 16 received a reduction of six months by the N.Y.C. Parole Board. Governor W. Averell Harriman also granted commutation of sentence to 11 men serving definite sentences: two received a six months reduction; one workhouse and eight penitentiary definites became eligible for immediate release.

Investigation

An investigation by 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 ...

was hampered by a lack of information about what transpired aboard the aircraft in its final minute, as flight data and

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 ...

s had not yet been routinely installed in commercial aircraft. The Board found that the

probable cause In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition o ...

of the accident was "The failure of the captain to: 1) properly observe and interpret his flight instruments, and 2) maintain control of his aircraft." In layman's terms, the captain lost spatial awareness when he entered the clouds seconds after takeoff, and therefore didn't detect or correct the airplane's deviation from its desired course.

In popular culture

The flight was the featured story in a book on aviation written by Alvin Moscow, ''Tiger on a Leash''. Told from the hindsight of 1961, it discussed many aspects of passenger flight of the time.Kirkus Review: Tiger on a Leash
/ref>

References

External links

Aircraft Accident Report on Flight 823
- Civil Aeronautics Board
PDF

Alternate URL

from PlaneCrashInfo.com.

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