Category: Accidents

On December 8, 2013, people will pause and reflect on a 1963 tragedy that sadly affected so many individuals when Flight 214 crashed at the edge of Elkton.  On that horrific night 81 people on the big Pan American World Airways jet perished, first responders rushed to try to help, and the larger community mobilized, supporting the massive recovery operation for Maryland’s worst aviation disaster.

It was a time of shock and sadness as, in an instant, families were shattered and lives were altered in an untold number of ways that Sunday evening.  In the Elkton and Newark areas lots of residents peering out at the unusual thunderstorm watched with horror as lightning struck the low-flying aircraft, causing it to explode in mid-flight.  In homes across the county, emergency radios crackled urgently to life, breaking the Sunday evening silence, with the most urgent of alerts. Firefighters, police officers, military personnel and rescue workers rushing toward a cornfield to try to help confronted an unsettling scene.

On Dec 8, 2013, the public is invited to gather for an occasion of remembrance in an event sponsored by the Historical Society of Cecil County and the Singerly Fire Company.  The main program takes place at 2:00 p.m. at the fire station on Newark Avenue in Elkton.  This is something that will stay with friends and families of victims forever and is seared into the collective memory of the community.  So we are taking time to pause, reflect, and remember those who lost their lives and those who answered the call to help, according to Don Hicks and Paula Newton, the presidents of the two sponsoring groups.

“In a split-second the lives of emergency workers changed that night as they rushed toward the unnerving accident, a disaster of unprecedented size and scope for a rural volunteer fire department in the early 1960s.  But working the front line of the grim crash scene, they did what they had to.  And the memories of those days never faded for a generation of young firefighters,” President Hicks of the fire company noted.  “In addition, residents in the area will never forget where they were or what they were doing when Maryland’s largest aviation disaster occurred,” the Historical Society’s Newton added. “It was one of those defining moments in the community’s history and as Cecil’s heritage keepers we will observe this passage and honor the memories by recording the events of that sad day.”

As the two groups mark passage of decades by pausing and reflecting during a public program, the hosts have one additional objective, the creation of a Remembrance Archive that chronicles memories of the accident.  To record whatever personal and professional stories people wants to share the sponsors are opening up the “Flight 214 Listening Station” on Saturday, Dec. 7^th, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.  During half-hour appointments, people are invited to privately share firsthand accounts of the tragedy.

Oral historians will be at recording booths, listening, asking a few questions, and recording the conversation, but mostly listening.  These stories — whatever individuals want to share — will be added to a permanent collection.  The recordings will help assure that generational memory of the event and its impact on families, public safety agencies, the public and the community doesn’t disappear as time moves on.

Those wishing to document their own experience may do so at the recording stations.  For an appointment email remembrance@cecilhistory.org.  In addition, the fire company is compiling a list of its first responders and through the fire company museum is sitting with that generation of emergency workers to capture their experiences.

On a terrible night in 1963, eighty-one people aboard a doomed aircraft, Pan American Airways Flight 214, perished when the plane exploded and plunged into a cornfield at the edge of Elkton.  The fiery blast in the stormy Maryland sky caused the plane to break up in flight.  The first arriving emergency responder, Lt. Don Hash of the Maryland State Police, observed that the only sizeable recognizable piece of jetliner was a section of fuselage with about eight or ten window frames.

On that cold, rainy December evening, as lighting periodically illuminated the cornfield, a county firefighter also died in the line of duty.  When the general alarm went out for all available ambulances, Steward W. Godwin, 56, responded on the North East Volunteer Fire Company unit.  While searching for survivors about 1:30 that morning, he suddenly collapsed into the arms of Andrew Scarborough, another North East member, the News Journal reported.

This horrifying aircraft disaster, the worst in Maryland history, is something that is seared into the collective memory of the community.  The generation residing here in 1963 will never forget the unusual December thunderstorm and how the fiery blast in the stormy sky suddenly illuminated the town, momentarily turning December darkness into daylight.  Fear, anxiety, and concern swept across the unnerved community as emergency units rushed toward the cornfield, hoping to aid the injured.  But it was soon apparent that the accident wasn’t survivable. 

A granite memorial was dedicated at the crash site in 1994.  It is located near the main impact point on Delancy Road, in a grassy center strip of Wheelhouse Drive, the entrance to Turnquist, a development that sprang up years afterward.

There is one other memorial to plane crash victims in the county.  Dedicated in 2011, it was placed where the plane hit a hillside, taking 53 lives on Memorial Day 1947.

As lightning periodically illuminated the cold, rainy night of December 8, 1963, five airliners flew in a holding pattern above Cecil County, awaiting clearance to land at Philadelphia International Airport. One craft, lightning crackling nearby as it circled, was Pan American Airways Flight 214. Suddenly the tower heard a transmission from that flight: “Mayday, mayday, mayday, clipper 214 out of control. Here we go . . .” Another circling plane radioed: “Clipper 214 is going down in flames.”

At quiet firehouses around the county, clocks ticked unhurriedly toward 9 p.m. that stormy Sunday evening until the emergency radio crackled to life with the startling alert: “Station 3, you have a plane crash,” the steady, professional voice of Rosemary Culley, the dispatcher at the control center, said. Following the first report that a large craft had “exploded and gone down in flames,” every phone in the dispatch center started ringing off the hook. While answering those lines and handling communications with several agencies that were swinging into action, the lone dispatcher coordinated the response of emergency responders.

Listening to the decades-old tape of communications that night, it rapidly became apparent that this was a major catastrophe. Chief Edgar Slaughter, who was leading his men to the scene to search for survivors and put out fires, radios in many times asking for more information, help, and equipment. Within minutes of the first alert, Rosemary puts out a general alarm: “All available ambulances respond to a plane crash at Delancy Road in Elkton.”

The Eighty-one people aboard the doomed craft perished when it exploded and plunged into a cornfield outside Elkton after being struck by lightning. This horrifying explosion and crash of the Pan American Airways Boeing 707 is the most serious disaster in the history of Cecil County and the most serious air disaster in Maryland’s history. That terrible night is something residents living in the area at the time or the first responders rushing to that Maryland cornfield will never forget.

Note – Here are some additional resources.

Emergency Communications Audio — Rosemary Culley preserved the emergency radio communications tape from Sunday evening, Dec. 8,  1963, and the Singerly Fire Company Museum has made a few minutes of the recording available online. We’ve now placed the entire recording of about 30 minutes on the Net.  See the audio player at the bottom of this page to hear the emergency broadcast.  Thanks to Rosemary Culley for preserving and making this valuable recording available. 

Official Report — Click here to read the official CAB report.

Another Airline Crashes in Cecil County — On Memorial Day 1947, Eastern Airlines Flight 605 crashed near Port Deposit, killing all 53 people on board the craft.  To read about this disaster click here.

First Emergency Responder to Arrive on Scene of 1963 Plane Crash Recalls Tragic Night

This is the official CAB Report from the Civil Aeronautics Board.  It is from the Department of Transportation Digital Library.  This site contains many other aircraft accident reports.  We are providing the link for the report here. You have to register to gain access to the site, but the documents are free.  In case you don’t want to do that we have uploaded it to this blog post and you may view it by clicking on the link above.

https://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Document?db=DOT-AIRPLANEACCIDENTS&query=(select+762)

From Cecil Observer —

While the search continues for an AirFrance jetliner carrying more than 200 people that disappeared over the Atlantic this week, the possible role of lightning in that tragedy recalls a similar air disaster in the skies over Cecil County.

On a December night in 1963, the sky lit up when a fireball exploded over Elkton. Calls poured in to Rosemary Culley, dispatcher for emergency services in Cecil County in the days before 9-1-1. No one knew exactly what had occurred, only that something was terribly wrong. Soon enough, however, it became clear that a jet plane had disintegrated high above Cecil County.

Article Continues on Cecil Observer

Sixty-two years ago on a gorgeous Memorial Day, a DC-4 with 53 people on board suddenly plunged from the sky into thick woods outside Port Deposit, MD. With about an hour of daylight remaining, Eastern Airlines Flight 605 departed La Guardia on time for its scheduled trip to Miami.

As the southbound craft neared the Susquehanna River, Bainbridge, and Port Deposit coming into view, everything seemed perfectly normal on this serene afternoon. A DC-3 with a group of Civil Aeronautics Board Investigators (CAB) trailed about three miles behind Flight 605. They, too, were enjoying the afternoon as the sunlight faded. They were returning from probing the crash of another DC-4 at La Guardia the day before.

With the tranquil scene and the daylight fading, the CAB staffers were taking in the view. But suddenly, they were jolted out of this peaceful tranquility by the frightening action of the craft just ahead of them. It was streaking earthward in a vertical dive. Losing altitude quickly, the plane kept dropping, and it appeared that no attempt was being made to pull it out of the steep, rapid, out-of-control descent.

Then there was a puff of white smoke, a flash of orange, and a billowing cloud of smoke. After circling the scene, the federal men landed at Aberdeen Proving Ground and commanded ground transportation to the scene to start another fatal investigation. Everyone on board had died in the terrible explosion.

Fire companies from Perryville, Port Deposit (Water Witch) and Havre De Grace, along with police officers and men from the Bainbridge Naval Training Center, rushed to the scene, but they could do nothing. The crash occurred in a dense, thicket of woods and vines near the north end of Principio roads, not too far from Bainbridge.

Chief Walker of the Havre De Grace Police Department was the first officer to reach the scene according to the Havre de Grace Record. Hurriedly covering the few miles from town to the scene, he told the Record that he was guided to the area by a plane that kept circling above the area. It was later determined this was the craft carrying the CAB officials from the accident at La Guardia which also took a huge toll of lives. “I left officers Bullock and Himes to drive to the scene of the accident while I made my way through the woods on foot. I’ll never forget the horror of that first glimpse I received when I entered the clearing . . . The tangled wreckage of the airliner was a blazing inferno and I realized that all of the passengers must surely be dead.”

According to Aviation Week, the accident was tagged as a mystery. No evidence was found on the structural cause of the crash, and in those days, recording devices were not yet in use. This is one of the few “for reasons unknown” crashes in the history of U.S. air accidents and the investigation still has experts puzzled all these decades later.

Here is a link to the CAB report.

Here is the CAB report, which was issued the following year. 

The CAB issued its report the following year and here’s a link to that archived document.

The Civil Aeronautics Board issued its report and findings following the plane crash. Here’s a PDF of the report. This report is from the Department of Transportation Special Collections Library. Registration is required but it is a free service and it gives you access to many of the accident investigation reports.

For more on plane crashes in Cecil County See

Memorial Erected on hillside where plane crash occured

On a Rain-Swept Sunday, Memorial to Victims of Eastern Airlines Plane Crash Near Port Deposit Dedicated

Memorial Remembers Victims of Pan American Plane Crash in Elkton