Somber reminder of Eastern flight 66

[Aviation.High.Guy]

As I was going through some of my old aviation stuff squirreled away , I came across a grim reminder of
a fateful day in NYC aviation history. The day Eastern Airlines flight 66, a 727 fell out of the sky.

She was taken down by wind shear during a thunderstorm just short of Rockaway Blvd and JFK's RWY 22L.
On June 24, 1975 one hundred and thirteen souls perished there. I was a young kid at the time, but I'll never
forget that huge plume of black smoke on the horizon. I could see it clearly from my apartment nearly 5 miles away
in central Queens.

http://www.jenewsphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/dc_2504888.jpg

About six years later ('80 or '81), when I was a teen I began making trips by bicycle down to the 22s with my
buds to take pictures of airliners. (We didn't know about the "Mounds" spotting area back then.) We would
just head straight to the approach lights- as close as we could get to the runway. I loved that smell of jet fuel
in the air and feeling a gust of wind in the wake of a jumbo passing low overhead.

http://oi47.tinypic.com/jl0wuw.jpg

One day while waiting for the next arrival I started kicking around some sand out of boredom. I looked down
and saw this twisted little piece of cast aluminum, painted zinc chromate green and lined with rivets. Being
a freshman at Aviation High School I knew right away what I was looking at. But I can still remember feeling a chill
up my back when I realized why it was there. It was an air disaster relic. Something the investigators and clean up crews
missed. A small piece of flight 66. After picking it up, my friends and I started poking around the earth some more.
Within a few minutes we turned up a few more small airplane fragments, only this time they had dark blue and aqua paint.
...The colors of Eastern Airlines. :frown:

http://oi47.tinypic.com/eqtrsz.jpg

[snydersnapshots]

Wow! And speaking of accidents, I believe today is the anniversary of the Tenerife accident...

[NIKV69]

Those artifacts are incredible. Few years ago some friends and I took a helicopter up to Mount Potosi to the site of TWA flight 3 and found little pieces of wreckage. I'd bet pieces of those two 747s at Tenerife are still in the dirt as well.

[megatop412]

Wow, what a find Don. Crazy when you think of large commercial airplanes being reduced to thousands and thousands of small bits like that, to say nothing of the occupants. There's probably still some small bits of AA587 over in Belle Harbor. I still haven't made it over there to see the monument

[Aviation.High.Guy]

Wow, I just googled Flight 3. Did you see the pilot's wings supposedly found at that site by a hiker?
Amazing find if it's true.

http://www.lostflights.com/Commercial-Aviation/11642-TWA-TWA-Douglas-DC-3/5007934_mqCvFr/394262014_sDw5BLC



Those artifacts are incredible. Few years ago some friends and I took a helicopter up to Mount Potosi to the site of TWA flight 3 and found little pieces of wreckage. I'd bet pieces of those two 747s at Tenerife are still in the dirt as well.

[Aviation.High.Guy]

Yep. It kinda freaks me out to own these parts, but as a collector and history buff I can't part with them.



Wow, what a find Don. Crazy when you think of large commercial airplanes being reduced to thousands and thousands of small bits like that, to say nothing of the occupants. There's probably still some small bits of AA587 over in Belle Harbor. I still haven't made it over there to see the monument

[AJ]

Amazing finds, a couple of fantastic pieces of aviation history. That would look great framed with a shot of the aircraft.

Still sad to imagine that day near Rockaway Blvd. I remember getting stuck in the sand when I drove on that exact spot in the last 80's.

AJ

[Zee71]

Don.....I remember that day well............I was a young lad at 15 years of age. A group of us were on the A train heading back home from the Rockaways. I recall looking out the window, when we heard a tremendous bang. I didn't know what it was until I saw the smoke off in the distance. We got off the Rockaway Blvd. train station, and as we were walking home all remember was the amount of emergency vehicles heading down Woodhaven Blvd. and heading to the airport. Once I arrived home, my mom was glued to the breaking news on the TV of the disaster. I told her that I was going to see for myself. I quickly grab my wheels (my bike), and pedaled as fast as I could to get there. When I finally got to Rockaway Blvd. and closer to the field, I just remember hoards of people heading for the field not to help but to loot, which I couldn't even phantom why would anyone ever do that. I never got close enough to see the wreckage, because it was a mob scene to say the least. I was so sadden by those whom lost their souls that day, and disgusted by the looters. A day I never forgot.

[Aviation.High.Guy]

Hey Mark, thanks for sharing your experience of that fateful day. Indeed it was a very sad time for NYC Aviation.
I remember all the talk on the news about the danger of windshear and microbursts.

On a happier note, good to know I wasn't the only kid riding a bicycle to the airport. :wink:

[727C47]

Hey Mark, thanks for sharing your experience of that fateful day. Indeed it was a very sad time for NYC Aviation.
I remember all the talk on the news about the danger of windshear and microbursts.

On a happier note, good to know I wasn't the only kid riding a bicycle to the airport. :wink:
you weren't,and my people in South Ozone Park heard that crash too,a very ,very,sad day

[megatop412]

Amazing how vivid people's recollections are, more than 35 years later

[Delta777LR]

collectables right there! thats incredible, Im curtain if i was to walk around those approach light at JFK, it would be crazy if I found another piece of Eastern 66. If I did I would also take that piece home and frame it. Thats incredible. Thats a piece of a major disaster.

[Aviation.High.Guy]

collectables right there! thats incredible, Im curtain if i was to walk around those approach light at JFK, it would be crazy if I found another piece of Eastern 66. If I did I would also take that piece home and frame it. Thats incredible. Thats a piece of a major disaster.

I bet you're right. It would take over a century for those relics to disintegrate and probably the fiberglass parts would
never go away. I'm sure there are fragments still out there. By now, they would probably be a few inches underground.

[daughter]

My father died on that flight. Those relics jumped out at me. It still feels like yesterday.

[NIKV69]

My father died on that flight. Those relics jumped out at me. It still feels like yesterday.

Sorry for your loss. My dad was a ramper for EAL and was working when 66 went down. R.I.P.

Don you are right. My buddies at IFP take Helo flights in that area all the time. I may plan something for this winter.

[stratoduck]

There was something remarkable that day, and that was Eastern 902 which was a company L-1011 just in front of it. This article (http://lessonslearned.faa.gov/ll_main.cfm?TabID=1&LLID=67&LLTypeID=2) states it was the Captain, but Eastern pilots have told me it was the First Officer who was at the controls. The pilot of 902 elected to go-around when the approach became unstable, and he did two no-no's. First, in lieu of using go-around power, he firewalled the engines likely damaging them. Second, he kept pulling back, ignoring the low airspeed and associated stick shaker which put the airliner in a precarious situation for a stall.

Eastern 66 was just behind it and wasn't able to survive the downdraft. After that accident and interviews, focus was put on the crew of 902 and why they survived. It was determined that firewalling the engines and pulling back on the yoke until the descent rate is arrested was the key to the airliner's survival. This was the birth of what airline pilots train for today - the windshear escape maneuver. Firewall the engines, pull back until the descent rate is arrested, and don't change the configuration until safely flying away.

This maneuver was later solidified with Delta Flight 191 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Flight_191). Part of the investigation involved loading the flight and weather data into flight simulators, and the conclusion was if the crew had behaved like the crew of 902, the L-1011 would have likely survived.

This solidified the windshear escape maneuver as part of the training for transport category airplanes.

With the information we have now, the newest doppler radar, and crews alert for this kind of weather, airliners rarely encounter severe windshear anymore. In the rare case they do, the crews know how to respond, thanks to the mistake of the crew of Eastern 902.

[mirrodie]

amaxing post. condolences to daughter. Uncanny post, really