American Airlines Flight 320 Totally Explained

Everything about American Airlines Flight 320 totally explained

American Airlines Flight 320, registration N6101A, was a Lockheed L-188A Electra en route from Chicago Midway International Airport to New York City's LaGuardia Airport on February 3, 1959. It crashed into the East River on approach; 65 of the 73 on board died. It was the first crash for the Electra, which had been introduced only recently by American Airlines.
The Civil Aeronautics Board (the predecessor of the NTSB) found that the probable cause of the accident was the decision to descend below landing minimums prematurely. This was the result of the crew's preoccupation with particular aspects of the aircraft and its environment, which caused the crew to neglect essential flight instrument references such as attitude, altitude, and height above the approach surface. The Board also identified the following contributing factors:

Limited experience of the crew with the aircraft type;
Faulty approach technique in which the autopilot was used in the heading mode to or almost to the surface;
Erroneous setting of the captain's altimeter;
Marginal weather in the approach area;
Possible misinterpretation of altimeter and rate of descent indicator; and
Sensory illusion with respect to height and attitude resulting from visual reference to the few lights existing in the approach area.

Many references to Flight 320 claim that there were 72 persons on board and that there were only seven survivors. This error may be due to the fact that one victim was a lap infant and didn't have its own seat or ticket.
The flight number is still used today on its Montego Bay-Miami-New York (LGA) route.
The accident took place on the same day that a plane carrying Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all three singers. (See "The Day the Music Died.") In many newspapers (including the New York Times), the crash of Flight 320 pushed the singers' plane crash off the front pages.

Further Information

Get more info on 'American Airlines Flight 320'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://american_airlines_flight_320.totallyexplained.com">American Airlines Flight 320 Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.