Eastern Air Lines Flight 304

Eastern Air Lines Flight 304
	A Douglas DC-8 of Eastern Air Lines, similar to the aircraft involved in the accident
Occurrence
Date	February 25, 1964
Summary	Loss of control caused by pitch trim failure
Site	Lake Pontchartrain, near New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Douglas DC-8
Operator	Eastern Air Lines
IATA flight No.	EA304
ICAO flight No.	EAL304
Call sign	EASTERN 304
Registration	N8607[1]
Flight origin	Mexico City International Airport
1st stopover	New Orleans International Airport
2nd stopover	Atlanta International Airport
3rd stopover	Dulles International Airport
Destination	John F. Kennedy International Airport
Occupants	58
Passengers	51
Crew	7
Fatalities	58
Survivors	0

Eastern Air Lines Flight 304, a Douglas DC-8 flying from New Orleans International Airport to Washington Dulles International Airport, crashed on February 25, 1964. All 51 passengers and 7 crew were killed. Among the dead were American singer and actor Kenneth Spencer and Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux, a women's and human rights activist and member of the French delegation to the United Nations.

Sequence of events

Flight 304 left New Orleans International Airport for Atlanta at 2:01 a.m. Central Standard Time on the second leg of a flight from Mexico City to New York City, with intermediate stops at New Orleans, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. The aircraft disappeared from radar nine minutes after takeoff, at 2:10 a.m. Good visibility and calm winds prevailed at the time of the accident, although light rain was also falling. The Coast Guard and other searchers spotted wreckage hours later around dawn in Lake Pontchartrain, about 20 miles (32 km) northeast of New Orleans.[2][3]

Investigation

The subsequent investigation concluded that the jet crashed into Lake Pontchartrain en route due to "degradation of aircraft stability characteristics in turbulence, because of abnormal longitudinal trim component positions."[4]

At least 32 of the passengers were making the through trip. Fourteen got on in New Orleans, while 14 were pass-riding Eastern employees. The four-engined plane, capable of carrying 126 passengers, was due in Atlanta at 3:59 a.m., at Dulles Airport in Washington at 5:53 a.m. and at Kennedy Airport in New York at 7:10 a.m.

The victims included Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux, a member of the French delegation to the United Nations, who was active in women's and human rights activities of the world body. The pilot...with Eastern 21 years, had flown over five million miles. The co-pilot...had almost two million miles on his flight log.
Coast Guard recovered parts of the wreckage, clothing, luggage and what was described as bits of bodies from a wide spread area centered 6 miles (10 km) south of the north shore of the lake and about 4 miles (6 km) east of the 23-mile (37 km)-long Lake Pontchartrain causeway. A [United States] Coast Guard pilot said there were indications that the plane had exploded either in the air or on impact. Eastern said that the crew had made the routine checks after take-off and that no alarm had been given. An experienced Eastern pilot said the jet had probably reached a height of 16,000 feet shortly after it had got over the lake.
— The New York Times, February 26, 1964

The water was only 20 feet (6 m) deep, yet only 60 percent of the wreckage was recovered because the breakup was so extensive.

The flight data recorder tape was too damaged to help the investigation. Instead, investigators used the maintenance records of the crashed aircraft and of other DC-8s, to conclude that the pilots had trimmed the horizontal stabilizer to the full nose-down position, to counter the excessive nose-up attitude that, in turn, was caused by a malfunctioning pitch trim compensator that had extended too far. Once the upset occurred, it was not possible to trim the horizontal stabilizer back to the nose-up position, because of the severe G-forces generated by the crew's pulling back on the yoke after the upset.[2]

Victims

American singer Kenneth Spencer was also killed in the crash.

References

"FAA Registry (N8607)". Federal Aviation Administration.
"Aircraft Accident Report: Eastern Airlines, Inc., Douglas DC-8, N8607, New Orleans, Louisiana, February 25, 1964" (PDF). Civil Aeronautics Board. June 27, 1966. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 1, 2016. Retrieved May 20, 2019. - Copy in the National Transportation Library
"58 ON JET KILLED IN CRASH IN LAKE AT NEW ORLEANS". The New York Times. February 26, 1964. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
Haines, Edgar (2000), Disaster in the Air, New York: Cornwall Books, p. 157, ISBN 0-8453-4777-2

External links

Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
NTSB Brief about the crash.

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[1] "FAA Registry (N8607)". Federal Aviation Administration.

[cab-2] "Aircraft Accident Report: Eastern Airlines, Inc., Douglas DC-8, N8607, New Orleans, Louisiana, February 25, 1964" (PDF). Civil Aeronautics Board. June 27, 1966. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 1, 2016. Retrieved May 20, 2019. - Copy in the National Transportation Library

[3] "58 ON JET KILLED IN CRASH IN LAKE AT NEW ORLEANS". The New York Times. February 26, 1964. Retrieved September 7, 2022.

[4] Haines, Edgar (2000), Disaster in the Air, New York: Cornwall Books, p. 157, ISBN 0-8453-4777-2

Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States and U.S. territories in the 1960s
1960	National Airlines Flight 2511 Capital Airlines Flight 20 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 710 Chicago Helicopter Airways Flight 698 World Airways Flight 830 Eastern Air Lines Flight 375 Cal Poly football team New York mid-air collision
1961	Goldsboro B-52 American Airlines Flight 1502 Yuba City B-52 United Air Lines Flight 859 Alaska Airlines Flight 779 TWA Flight 529 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706 Imperial Airlines Flight 201/8 Cincinnati Zantop DC-4
1962	American Airlines Flight 1 Continental Airlines Flight 11 Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 301 United Air Lines Flight 297 Eastern Air Lines Flight 512
1963	Elephant Mountain B-52 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 705 Camden PA-24 Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 293 Mohawk Airlines Flight 112 Pan Am Flight 214
1964	Savage Mountain B-52 Eastern Air Lines Flight 304 Paradise Airlines Flight 901A Pacific Air Lines Flight 773 United Air Lines Flight 823 Bonanza Air Lines Flight 114 Flying Tiger Line Flight 282
1965	USAF KC-135 Wichita Eastern Air Lines Flight 663 Pan Am Flight 843 Continental Airlines Flight 12 Allegheny Airlines Flight 604 United Air Lines Flight 389 American Airlines Flight 383 United Air Lines Flight 227 Carmel mid-air (Eastern 853, TWA 42)
1966	NASA T-38 American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D Braniff International Airways Flight 250 West Coast Airlines Flight 956
1967	Lake Central Airlines Flight 527 TWA Flight 553 West Coast Airlines Flight 720 Delta Air Lines Flight 9877 Mohawk Airlines Flight 40 Piedmont Airlines Flight 22 TWA Flight 159 X-15 Flight 3-65-97 TWA Flight 128
1968	Ozark Air Lines Flight 965 Braniff International Airways Flight 352 Los Angeles Airways Flight 841 Los Angeles Airways Flight 417 Northeast Airlines Flight 946 Japan Air Lines Flight 2 Pan Am Flight 281 Wien Consolidated Airlines Flight 55 Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 Pan Am Flight 799 North Central Airlines Flight 458 Ozark Air Lines Flight 982
1969	Allegheny Airlines Flight 737 Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 933 United Air Lines Flight 266 Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 Prinair Flight 277 Delta Air Lines Flight 821 TWA Flight 5787 Newton Cessna 172 crash Allegheny Airlines Flight 853 Mohawk Airlines Flight 411
This list is incomplete.