| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | 1 March 1962 |
| Type | Improper maintenance, manufacturing defect leading to mechanical failure |
| Site | Jamaica Bay, Queens, New York |
| Passengers | 87 |
| Crew | 8 |
| Injuries | 0 |
| Fatalities | 95 (all) |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 707-123 |
| Operator | American Airlines |
| Tail number | N7506A |
| Flight origin | Idlewild Airport, New York |
| Destination | Los Angeles, California |
American Airlines Flight 1 was a domestic, scheduled passenger flight from Idlewild Airport, New York to Los Angeles, California that crashed shortly after take-off on 1 March 1962. All 87 passengers and 8 crew died in the crash. At the time, it was the deadliest accident in the United States. A Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigation determined that a manufacturing defect in the automatic pilot system led to mechanical failure, which caused the accident.
A number of notable people lost their lives in the crash, including oilman W. Alton Jones; Admiral Richard Lansing Conolly, president of Long Island University; and Arnold Kirkeby, realtor. At the time, Flight 1 was the deadliest aviation accident to occur on US soil. It was the sixth fatal Boeing 707 crash and, at the time, the deadliest. As of 1 December 2009, American Airlines Flight 1 still services the nonstop New York JFK-Los Angeles LAX route, albeit with a Boeing 767-223ER.
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The aircraft was a Boeing 707-123B, U.S. Registry N 7506A. It was manufactured on 12 February 1959, and was delivered to American Airlines on that same day. At the time of the crash, it had accumulated 8,147 hours of air time during the course of 3 years. Its last periodic inspection had occurred on 18 January 1962 at 7,922 hours of air time.[1] The flight crew consisted of Captain James T. Heist, First Officer Michael Barna, Jr., Second Officer Robert J. Pecor, and Flight Engineer Robert J. Cain. Also aboard were four stewardesses: Shirley Grabow, Lois Kelly, Betty Moore, and Rosalind Stewart.[1]
The aircraft received instructions to taxi to Idlewild's Runway 31L at 09:54 AM EST, and clearance to proceed to Los Angeles non-stop under instrument flight rules (IFR) at 10:02 AM EST. Flight 1 became airborne at 10:07 AM EST. Following American Airlines procedures and Departure Control instructions, the aircraft initiated a left turn.[1] In the course of the turn, the Boeing banked too far, flipped 90 degrees, and began an upside-down, nose-first descent in a nearly vertical dive.[1]
Flight 1 crashed into Pumpkin Patch Channel, Jamaica Bay, at 10:08:49.[1] Passengers aboard a plane bound for Albany that took off immediately after Flight 1 could only watch, horrified, as the airliner plunged into the bay.[2][3] The jet exploded upon impact, a geyser of brackish water and black smoke erupting from the site, and the scattered debris and fuel caught fire.[2] Long Island residents described hearing explosions which shook the foundations of nearby houses, though no one is known to have actually witnessed the crash.[4][3]
The aircraft crashed into a remote area of marshland on Jamaica Bay used as a wildlife sanctuary.[3] Upwards of 300 policemen and fire fighters, including 125 detectives attending a narcotics seminar at the Police Academy, as well as Coast Guard helicopters were mobilized to the crash site within half an hour of the crash for rescue operations, only to find that there were no survivors.[4][3] The three-alarm fire was under control by 10:50 AM EST, by which point only wreckage remained.[4] Low tides aided search personnel in their attempts to salvage bodies from the downed aircraft. Only a few bodies remained intact.[3]
Investigators were unable to recover sufficient body tissue to determine whether the crew had been physically incapacitated at the time of the crash.[1] Toxicology reports conclusively ruled out toxic gases, alcohol and drugs as possible cause for the crash.[1] Milton Helpern, Chief Medical Examiner, decided that having relatives attempt visual identification of the crash victims was inhumane, and ordered dental and fingerprint comparisons.[2] In early July, the Federal Aviation Administration announced their investigators believed that a cotter pin and a bolt missing from the rudder mechanism might have caused the crash of Flight 1. Though considered to be a "mechanic's oversight," the FAA nevertheless wired all 707 operators to inform them of the potential danger of the assembly.[5]
The Civil Aeronautics Board received notification of the accident at 10:10 AM EST and immediately sent investigators to Jamaica Bay to conduct an investigation. The flight recorder was found on March 9 and sent to Washington for analysis.[6] Public hearings were held at the International Hotel in New York on March 20-23, 1962.[1] In January 1963, the Civil Aeronautics Board released a report stating that the "most likely abnormality" to have caused the crash was a short circuit caused by wires in the automatic piloting system that had been damaged in the manufacturing process. FAA inspectors had inspected units at a Teterboro, New Jersey Bendix Corporation plant and discovered workers using tweezers to bind up bundles of wires, thereby damaging them.[7] The Bendix Corporation issued denials, stating that the units underwent 61 inspections during manufacturing, in addition to inspections during installation and maintenance work, and insisted that had the protective coating of the wires been breached at some point it would have surely been caught and the unit replaced.[8]
At the time, Flight 1 was the deadliest aviation accident to occur on US soil. It was the sixth fatal Boeing 707 crash, and, at the time, the deadliest.[9]
A number of notable people were aboard Flight 1 when it went down in Jamaica Bay.[10] They included:
In addition, 15 abstract paintings by the late artist Arshile Gorky were en route to Los Angeles for an exhibition and were destroyed. Alton Jones was found to be carrying $55,690 in cash, including a $10,000-bill.[2]
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   | Aviation Safety Network for American Flight 1 - ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 707-123B N7506A Jamaica Bay, NY |
| | AirDisaster.com Flight 1 Report - Accident Database: Accident Synopsis 03011962 |
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