The Nome Nugget

Two Airliners Crash in Mid-Air Over Brooklyn; 125 Die in Wreckage

NEW YORK (AP) — Two huge airliners, groping through snow-shrouded skies for landings, collided and crashed into the city today with fiery devastation. At least 125 were killed.

The disaster was one of the worst in American aviation history.

It unleashed flames and havoc on the ground, turning an entire square block of Brooklyn into an arena of terror. Residents fled apartments screaming as walls caved in and fires broke out in a dozen buildings.

So far, however, only one person on the ground was known killed. Of the 125 persons aboard the two planes, one lived, a young boy.

An army of emergency workers fought through the fires and wreckage, with possibly other casualties to be found.

One plane, a United Airlines DC8 jet with 83 aboard, struck in heavily populated Brooklyn, hurling debris like bomb fragments, and setting 10 apartment buildings on fire. A church—ironically named "Pillar of Fire"—was demolished.

It was the first crash in this country of a pure jet carrying passengers.

The other plane, a Trans-World Airline Constellation carrying 42, raked over Staten Island, and came to rest in harbor water. It also started fires in the area, but they were quickly controlled.

Heavy snow was falling when the crash came about 10:40 a. m.

The disaster recalled another plane collision over the Grand Canyon on June 30, 1956, when 128 were killed. It also was between TWA and United Airliners.

Today's TWA flight was from Dayton and Columbus, Ohio, coming in for a landing at La Guardia Field. The United Airliner, out of Chicago, was stabbing through the murk for Idlewild International Airport.

The DC8 jet plummeted like a flaming rocket into an area on Flatbush Avenue, setting off an inferno. Every available piece of fire and emergency equipment was rushed to the scene.

Street side morgues were set up, and ambulances formed a screaming cavalcade heading to hospitals.

The lone passenger to survive was identified as Stephen Baltz, 11, of Chicago's suburban Wilmette. He was on his way to join his mother, who was visiting relatives in New York.

Although only one victim on the ground had been found by early afternoon, firemen still had mountains of wreckage and rubble to search.

The FBI sent a seven-man disaster squad from Washington to aid in identifying victims.

A control tower spokesman at La Guardia Field said the TWA plane was being watched on radarscope as it came in, when the image suddenly disappeared from view, apparently when the planes collided and fell.

At just what point over the city they came together was not precisely determined. But the stricken craft apparently swerved apart, plunging toward their separate dooms.