A Glimpse of 1947 LaGuardia: From Glamorous Arrivals to Tragic Departures
A YouTube rabbit hole tells the story of a forgotten crash and also revisits LGA's former runways.
A good friend shared a video (see below) with footage taken at LaGuardia Airport in 1947. It starts with an American Airlines Douglas DC-4 blocking-in, men rolling stairs to the rear door, and well-dressed people deplaning onto the ramp.
The scene shifts to Lockheed L-1049 Constellations taxiing through puddles on imperfectly paved taxiways before taking off, with the young Whitestone Bridge and Rikers Island in the background.
In that same view, you can spot my Queens hometown of College Point—where my father would be born just six years later.
But then, something caught my eye that made me start digging.
Grand Central Tragedy
At the 5:40 mark it transitions to a more somber scene of burnt aircraft wreckage. These are the remains of United Airlines Flight 521, a Douglas DC-4 (registration NC30046) that was hoping to fly to Cleveland Municipal Airport on May 29th.
On the takeoff roll, the Captain felt resistance in the flight controls, which prevented him from lifting off. When he had only 1,000 feet of runway remaining he decided to abort the takeoff. Without enough room to stop, the aircraft overran the runway, left the airport perimeter, and hopped across what was then a narrow section of the Grand Central Parkway before bursting into flames.
Of the 48 souls on board, 43 lost their lives. The wreckage came to rest on what is today the embankment on the south side of the parkway in front of Vaughn College’s “airplane parking lot” (Vaughn was then named Casey Jones School of Aeronautics).
The post-crash investigation revealed that the “gust lock” had not been released, immobilizing the control surfaces and rendering pilot inputs useless.. This would be the modern equivalent of trying to drive with “The Club” anti-theft device still on your car’s steering wheel.
United 521 was the deadliest plane crash in United States history–for one day. On May 30th, Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 (also a Douglas DC-4) crashed in Baltimore Maryland, killing 53 people.
LGA’s Evolving Runways: And Then There Were Two
United 521 (more photos below) took place off the end of runway 18, a north-south stretch of pavement among LaGuardia’s array of runways back then that at 45-degree angles. Runway 18/36 closed later that year, and the east-west runway, 9/27, was closed just over a decade later during a big era of growth and expansion for the airport.
Today’s runways, 13/31 and 4/22, remain, were eventually extended to 7,000 feet each, and actually narrowed from 200 to 150 feet. Runway 13/31 was also shifted slightly to the northeast in 1961 to make way for what is now taxiway B.
Grand Central Parkways is also unlikely to see another runway overrun. Though runway 22 ends less than 100 feet from the GCP’s 10 lanes of Queensborough traffic, the runway has an “arrester bed” made of a brittle cement built to slow and capture aircraft that go off the end of the runway.
Truman’s Air Force One Visits
At the 7:35 mark we see President Truman’s “Air Force One,” in the form of a Douglas DC-6 (6-505) that the United States Air Force designated the VC-118. The second aircraft purpose-built for Presidential transport, 1947 was its first of 6 years of service for this specific aircraft. This airplane now sits at the Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. It was advanced for its era, having technologies that were state-of-the-art like weather radar and auto pilot. No word on cup holders or wifi.
A Time Machine
Seeing footage like this from over half of a century before we all had cameras in our pockets is an incredible opportunity. Seeing my hometown, seeing the differences in how the aviation industry performed, and then remembering a tragedy that our industry grew from, makes this type of documentation truly invaluable.
I hope you all appreciate history in all it’s forms, drawing its good, its bad, and its beauty.
As for the aforementioned YouTube video:
Here are more photos of the United 521 wreck:
A previous version of this article was published on NYCAviation.com February 25, 2016.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely my own and do not represent the positions of my employer or any affiliated organizations. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as professional advice.