(Source: AP)
Remembering the 1960 plane collision that rained wreckage on Park Slope
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the New York mid-air collision that claimed more than 100 lives and drove industry reform.
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the day two commercial jets collided in mid air over Park Slope, raining wreckage down onto Seventh Ave. and Sterling Place, and into Prospect Park. Everyone on board was killed (with the exception of an 11-year-old boy who died the next day), as were six people on the ground.
(AP)
The crash—involving a United DC-8 plane headed for Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) and a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation descending into LaGuardia—would later drive the adoption of modern air traffic control systems.
(AP)
In 2010, on the 50th anniversary of the accident, a memorial to the 134 victims of the two crashes was unveiled in Green-Wood Cemetery, which is the site of a common grave for the remains that could not be identified.
One of the few surviving scars of the the incident can be seen at 126 Sterling Pl., where the brownstone’s cornice was destroyed and never replaced.
