Ne Bruklin 50 vjet pas tragjedise ngrihet sot memoriali i 136 viktimave qe
humben jeten nga perlasja ne qiell e dy avioneve te udhetareve
16, 1960, 134 people lost their lives when United Airlines Flight 826 and
TWA Flight 266 collided over the skies of Staten Island
1960 Park Slope Plane Crash
BROOKLYN - NEW YORK CITY : This week marks the 50th anniversary of the
tragic plane crash that sent two aircrafts hurling into the city's outer
boroughs—one landing in Staten Island, the other in Park Slope. A memorial will
finally be unveiled at Green-Wood cemetery tomorrow morning, the actual
date the crash took place, and now City Room is memorializing the event with a
little series. Today they report that while no plaque marks the crash spot
at 7th Avenue and Sterling Place (which may be why many locals have no idea
it even happened), there are physical markers in the area.
You could even, if you had X-ray vision, see the shattered pieces of the
jet itself, hiding behind a backyard bush just feet from where they fell a
half-century ago... the unofficial memorials tell their own story.
One local they talk to says a landlord warned him that he may find fingers
while digging in the garden in the back of his apartment! Another, Steve
Keltner, has "two big pieces of what was clearly once a plane" in his
backyard. The pieces were found by teens who were digging through a condo
development site five years ago, they sold them to Keltner for 5 bucks. Here's a
look back at the crash site just after it occurred—it was well documented by
LIFE magazine at the time.
Last year we looked back at the in-air plane crash that sent the wreckage
of a United Airlines flight onto the streets of Park Slope, and a TWA
aircraft onto Staten Island. This December 16th will mark the 50th anniversary of
the crash, and the Brooklyn Paper revisits it today, noting that there
isn't much of a memorial in the neighborhood, but still some locals left who
witnessed the tragedy.
The planes collided at 10:33 a.m., over a military airfield on Staten
Island—the United flight hit 126 Sterling Place in Park Slope before crashing
into 123 Sterling Place. Vito Fiumefreddo was 17 at the time, and ten blocks
away; he told the paper, “I ran towards it to see what it was all about. I
climbed up on a mound of snow and I saw. The stench was horrible. You could
smell the burning flesh.” All of the 130 souls on board were killed, as
well as 6 people on the ground—including a doctor who was out walking his
dog. Fiumefreddo says bodies were taken to a nearby bowling alley, that became
a temporary morgue—it's currently a pool hall on Flatbush Avenue.
While all passengers died (including the 44 on the TWA flight that crashed
in Staten Island), 11-year-old Stephen Baltz of Illinois did survive for
more than a day. While at Methodist Hospital, Baltz told the doctors, “I
remember looking out the plane window at the snow below covering the city. It
looked like a picture out of a fairy book. Then all of a sudden there was an
explosion. The plane started to fall and people started to scream. I held
on to my seat and then the plane crashed.”
Baltz had 65 cents in his pocket, which is part of a small bronze memorial
in the hospital's chapel. A more grand memorial will be unveiled at
Green-Wood Cemetery next week—it will be 8-feet-tall and made of granite, with the
names of all those killed etched into it. The unveiling and a memorial
service will take place at the cemetery on December 16th at 9:45 a.m.
Wreckage of TWA Flight 266 in Miller Field, Staten Island
NY Daily News PHoto
Wreckage of United Flight 826 Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn,
Dec 16, 1960
NY Daily News Photo
One of the first cops to respond to the
Ptl Peter Paul, 122 Pct (Head circled) on left side of photo walks from
tail section at scene
Patrolman Paul remembered meeting Patrolman Carl Kuhn, his fellow cop on
the scene of the disaster.
Ptl Carl Kuhn, 122 Pct NYPD Photo
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_b4F_08j7BZU/SZC9ZTYGX4I/AAAAAAAAACo/eN6wSJAhT6Q/s1600-h/planecrash41.jpg)
Seventh Ave and Sterling Pl, NW Corner. McCaddin Funeral Home is at
center.
The view up Sterling Place, towards Sixth Avenue.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_b4F_08j7BZU/SZC5AKyX-EI/AAAAAAAAACA/xyZeT0QpdUQ/s1600-h/3.jpg)
NE Corner, Sterling and Seventh. Flatbush Avenue is in the distance.
A visit to the corner today betrays little of what was, at the time, the
worst aviation disaster in history. New apartment houses stand in place of
the church and corner buildings, which for many years after the crash
remained vacant lots.
NW Corner, Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place
NE Corner, Sterling and Seventh
Nothing here commemorates the crash, not even a small plaque. A memorial
on this site to those who lost their lives is not only necessary, it’s
important. People should know what happened here, and I have a feeling that real
estate developers desperate to sell off these empty apartments play no
small role in keeping the disaster quiet.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_b4F_08j7BZU/SZHNLH2E0dI/AAAAAAAAADA/9SHMM4XFZ1c/s1600-h/IMG_0012.JPG)
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_b4F_08j7BZU/SZHNLH2E0dI/AAAAAAAAADA/9SHMM4XFZ1c/s1600-h/IMG_0012.JPG)
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