Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706
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Northwest Orient Airlines | |
Registration | N137US |
---|---|
Flight origin | O'Hare International Airport |
Destination | Tampa International Airport |
Occupants | 37 |
Passengers | 32 |
Crew | 5 |
Fatalities | 37 |
Injuries | 0 |
Survivors | 0 |
Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706 was a Lockheed L-188 Electra aircraft, registration N137US,[1] which crashed on take-off from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport September 17, 1961. All 37 on board were killed in the accident.
Flight 706 began its day in
starboard
wing began to drop. The bank angle increased to 35°; at that point the tower controllers picked up a garbled broadcast believed to be from the pilots. The aircraft climbed to approximately 300 feet but continued to bank, eventually reaching a bank angle of over 50°. At that point, the starboard wing nicked a series of high-tension power lines running along the south boundary of the airport; shortly after that, the aircraft struck an embankment and cartwheeled onto its nose. The forward fuselage broke off, the plane pancaked and skidded, then launched into the air and slammed nose-first into the ground, falling over on its back and exploding into a ball of flame. The accident took less than two minutes from the beginning of takeoff until the final crash.
Investigators with the
routine maintenance
; a safety cable that held part of the assembly together had not been replaced when the cables were hooked back up. The contact slowly separated, until it completely failed during the takeoff sequence.
See also
References
- ^ "FAA Registry (N137US)". Federal Aviation Administration.
External links
- Aircraft Accident Report on Flight 706 - Civil Aeronautics Board
- Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
- Air Disaster, Vol. 4: The Propeller Era, by ISBN 1-875671-48-X
- The Crash of Flight 706: The Impact and Breakup Sequence ..., by Craig Hagstrom, 2016 [1]