East Haven, Connecticut – June 7, 1971
At 7:14 a.m. on June 7, 1971, Allegheny Airlines Flight 485 departed Washington D.C. bound for Trumbull Airport, (Today known as Groton-New London Airport) in Connecticut. The flight arrived at 8:13 a.m. but weather conditions prevented landing, and the aircraft was put in a holding pattern.
The aircraft was an Allison Prop Jet Convair 340/440, registration number N5832.
At 8:35 a.m. the weather at Groton-New London was reported to be an indefinite ceiling at 200 feet, with visibility one mile in fog, and surface winds at 220 degrees blowing at 5 knots.
At 8:41 Flight 485 requested clearance to land under Instrument Flight Rules, and four minutes later clearance was granted.
At 8:52 a.m. Flight 485 reported a “missed approach”. Over the next few minutes the pilot attempted two more IFR landings without success. By this point visibility had dropped to 3/4 of a mile and the cloud ceiling had dropped to 100 feet.
Flight 485 landed successfully on the fourth attempt and arrived at the gate at 9:23 a.m.
At that time 20 passengers got off the plane, and 14 new passengers boarded. The aircraft now contained 31 people: 2 pilots, 1 stewardess, 26 adult passengers, and 2 infants. The flight departed at 9:33 a.m. bound for Tweed Airport in New Haven, Connecticut.
At 9:48 a.m. Flight 485 was cleared to land on Runway 2 at Tweed Airport. The weather at Tweed was a partially obscured sky with visibility at 1.75 miles in fog, and wind blowing at 180 degrees at 5 knots.
As the aircraft was making its final approach, it came in very low over the water of Long Island Sound amid intermittent fog and clouds. Moments before reaching land, it had dropped to less than 30 feet above the water before it struck the upper portions of three beach houses along the shoreline of East Haven, Connecticut, near Morgan Point. The impact of the homes was later determined to be only 25 feet above sea level. (The three homes were set ablaze from the accident and were subsequently destroyed.)
After striking the homes, the plane hit the ground, broke apart, and caught fire. It had crashed 4,890 feet short of the end of Runway 2. (Tweed Airport is located on the New Haven/East Haven town lines. The actual impact took place in East Haven.)
There were no reports of anyone on the ground being injured.
Only three people survived the crash: one crew member and two passengers. The first officer, James A. Walker, 34, was critically injured when he was ejected from the cockpit as the plane broke apart, but he survived. The two passengers, Janet McCaa, 28, and Norman Kelly, 38, escaped the from the burning cabin through an emergency exit.
As to those who didn’t survive, autopsy results determined that of those on board, only the pilot, Capt. David G. Eastridge, 39, received fatal injures from the crash. The rest of the passengers, and the lone stewardess, Judith L. Manning, 27, perished due to the smoke and or flames that resulted from the crash.
Click on image to enlarge.
Sources:
NTSB Crash Investigation Report, NTSB-AAR-72-20, File #1-0006, adopted June 1, 1972
The Daili Illini, “Plane Crash In Fog Kills 28”, June 8, 1971
(Sumter S.C.) The Daily Item, “Plane Crash Cause Given”, August 28, 1972, Pg. 13B