1960 New York air disaster

The 1960 New York air disaster was of one the worst airplane crashes in history, killing 127 air passengers and five more on the ground. It occurred on December 16, 1960, when two planes collided over New York City in a driving snowstorm.

While approaching New York Idlewild Airport in Queens (now John F. Kennedy International Airport), a United Airlines DC-8 from Chicago collided with a TWA Super Constellation from Dayton, Ohio in a blinding snowstorm over Staten Island. Afterwards the United jet careened into the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, demolishing an apartment building and a church (ironically named the Pillar of Fire Church) and sprewing wreckage all over a busy Brooklyn street, killing six people on the ground. Meanwhile the TWA plane crashed mainly on a Staten Island field, with some sections landing in New York Harbor. The only survivor of the tragedy was 11-year-old Stephen Baltz of Wilmette, Illinois, who was thrown into a snowbank. He later died in a local hospital.

129 passengers on the two planes were killed, along with six on the ground in Brooklyn. The cause of the crash was eventually determined to be the TWA pilot losing his way in the snowstorm.