History Park Slope

Remembering the Park Slope plane crash of 1960

December 16, 2019 Noah Singer
In this Dec. 17, 1960 file photo, the wreckage of a United airliner sits in the middle of 7th Avenue and Sterling place, the day after it crashed into the Park Slope section of Brooklyn following a midair collision with a TWA propeller plane one mile above New York City. Photo: AP
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On this day in 1960, a mid-air collision above the city sent the wreckage of a plane crashing through a Park Slope intersection.

The United Airlines flight struck a Trans World Airlines plane at a major airway intersection after experiencing a navigation system error. All 128 holiday travelers on both planes were killed, along with six bystanders, when the United flight careened through the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place.

Jet fuel from the wreckage set 10 adjacent brownstones aflame, as well as a funeral home, a laundromat, a delicatessen and the nearby Pillar of Fire Church.

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Accounts of the accident described bodies and wrapped Christmas gifts strewn among the rubble.

The United flight had been bound for Idlewild Airport, which would later become JFK. The TWA flight, which had been headed to LaGuardia, crashed in a Staten Island field.

The United flight’s data recorder showed that the plane had been 12 miles off course at the time of the collision, and that the flight’s captain had failed to follow instructions from air traffic control that told the plane to slow down.

The incident took place on the eve of the anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first successful powered flights in 1903. It was one of the earliest commercial airline disasters since passenger jet service’s popularization in the late 1950s.

Some buildings destroyed by the fire were rebuilt completely, but replacement brickwork is still visible at 123 Sterling Place. Newer brickwork near the top of 126 Sterling Place reveals where the United plane’s right wing cut through the building.

The crash left just one initial survivor. Eleven-year-old Stephen Baltz had been traveling from Illinois to visit family for Christmas in Yonkers. A snowbank extinguished his burning clothes, but Baltz died of pneumonia the next day from jet fuel fume inhalation at what is now NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

The hospital’s chapel houses a wall plaque that includes four dimes and five nickels that were in Blatz’s pocket during the crash. The plaque reads, “Our Tribute to a Brave Little Boy.”


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3 Comments

  1. Karl M Andrews

    I was a fairly new employee with United Airlines at that time. I first learned of it as I was going to work for afternoon shift that day. A friend and colleague of mine at the reservation office was on board that flight with her children. She was going to IDL to connect with a flight to France. She was a war bride and was going to visit her family. They had never met her children. She was well-liked at the airline and I knew her husband as well. He was employed by the airline also. I will never forget that day or the loss of a good friend.

    December 16, 2019 at 10:15 pm
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    • George Plagianos

      Hello Karl feel sorry for all these people who perished and these memories still can’t be erased in time.. so hard to believe this happened.. I remember walking with my mom and sister and looking down 7th Ave towards the crash site. I was only 9 years old.l remember seeing the fuselage and the tail wings I think at a 60 degree angle.. mom didn’t want to explain what happened I just rushed us on our way back to apartment on 153 Garfield Place. Didn’t know so many people passed away. Its like 59 years ago. Too late to wish them rest in peace but I hope the surviving families well and safe no more tragedies for them please

      December 17, 2019 at 1:35 am
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