81 Killed As Lightning Strikes Airliner In U.S.

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30310, 10 December 1963, Page 17

81 Killed As Lightning Strikes Airliner In U.S.

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright)

ELKTON (Maryland), December 9. Eighty-one persons plunged to a fiery death when a huge jet airliner blew up and crashed last night, the Associated Press reported. Horrified witnesses spoke of seeing people falling out of the flaming wreckage and plunging to their death 5000 feet below. Pan American Airways said the plane, a Boeing 707 bound from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia, was carry ing 73 passengers and eight crew. There were no survivors.

It crashed in a field | two miles north-east ■ of Elkton, about 54 | miles north-east of ■ Baltimore. Mrs Frank Ulmer, a local resident, said the crash occurred shortly before 9 p.m. Maryland State police said the plane, flying through a! storm on an instrument ap-! proach to Philadelphia, was apparently struck bv light-! rung. Mrs Ulmer said her son.' Clarence, saw the flaming wreckage of the plane plummet "like a big ball of fire.”; Maryland police said the recovery of bodies began soon after the crash. “It was an j explosion in the air.” said a headquarters official. Mrs-Helen Warner, a cashier at a roller skating rink just over the State border near Glasgow. Delaware. said people there •‘thought it was an atomic bomb." "The explosion lit up the rink and the parking area and shook the building." Mrs Warner said. "Some of the skaters standing by the windows saw the whole thing happen." Jerry Greenwald, aged 20. who was also at the rink, said: "There was a big flash and a few seconds later you could see the wing tom off. You could actually see people failin’ out The plane came down slowly and when it hit the ground it looked like it; exploded again." One of the first on the ■ acene. Henry Lindell, said it, was apparent to him that! lightning struck the plane. "There were two large arched streaks of lightning in the air. An instant afterward! the sky was completely lit I up by a bright orange light.! You could see the parts start- ■ ing to fall then.” he said. Witnesses said one of the' plane's four engines barely; missed a house and burning; wreckage set some of the! area aflame. "The whole field I was on fire,” Greenwald. sa.d. “Ail we could see wasi rubble.” The area was soon swarm-; tng with fire engines. State! police. a_.d spectators who! clogged the roads . and impeded the passage of, officials and rescuers. The Civil Aeronautics; board in Washington said about 10 investigators had gone to the scene. A Federal Aviation Agency spokesman m Washington said the plane was on a hold-1

I mg pattern near the Newcastle 'Delaware) airport, ; flying at 5000 feet and awaiting clearance to approach the I Philadelphia international I airport. A Pan American spokesman said 71 passengers had disembarked from the airliner during its stop at Baltimore. ! A representative of the airi line at Philadelphia said the last known message from the doomed aircraft was: /Going down in flames at *Ol5B zebra"—meaning 1.58 a.m. G.M.T The message was 1 monitored by ground control'

at Newcastle airport and at Dover (Delaware) Air Force base. Government sources said there had been about 10 crashes of Boeing 707 s since they went into service. Some of the crashes have been on training flights and some have been in foreign airliner service. United States airlines have suffered three Boeing 707 airliner crashes with fatalities to passengers, an official said. All the crashes were in I February, March and May 'last year.