46 Years Ago Today; The crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 212 In Charlotte NC

[Dennis Donovan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_212


An Eastern Airlines DC-9-31, similar to the aircraft involved

Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 was an Eastern Air Lines flight that crashed on September 11, 1974, killing 72 people.

The flight was a regularly scheduled flight from Charleston, South Carolina to Chicago, Illinois, with an intermediate stop in Charlotte, North Carolina. It carried 78 passengers and four crew.

Aircraft and crew
The aircraft involved was a five-year-old McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 registered as N8984E, which was delivered to Eastern Airlines on January 30, 1969.

The captain was 49-year-old James Edward Reeves, who had been with Eastern Air Lines since 1956. He had 8,876 flight hours, including 3,856 hours on the DC-9.

The first officer was 36-year-old James M. Daniels, Jr. He had been with Eastern Air lines since 1966 and had 3,016 flight hours, including 2,693 hours on the DC-9.

Crash
On the morning of Wednesday, September 11, 1974, while conducting an instrument approach in dense ground fog into Douglas Municipal Airport in Charlotte, the aircraft crashed more than three miles (5 km) short of runway 36, killing 72 of the 82 on board. Thirteen survived the initial impact at 7:34 am EDT, including the co-pilot and one flight attendant, but three more ultimately died from severe burn injuries. One of the initial survivors died of injuries 29 days after the accident.

Among the fatalities were the vice president for academic affairs of the Medical University of South Carolina, James William Colbert Jr. Television personality Stephen Colbert has spoken candidly about the loss of his father and two brothers in the crash.

Crash investigation and recommendations
The accident was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). While investigating this accident, and reviewing the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), the NTSB found that the flight crew engaged in unnecessary and "nonpertinent" conversation during the approach phase of the flight, discussing subjects "ranging from politics to used cars." The NTSB concluded that conducting such nonessential chatter can distract pilots from their flying duties during the critical phases of flight, such as instrument approach to landing, and recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) establish rules and educate pilots to focus exclusively on flying tasks while operating at low altitudes. The FAA, after more than six years of consideration, finally published the Sterile Cockpit Rule in 1981.

Another possible cause of the crash discussed by the NTSB in its review of the CVR was that the crew was apparently trying to visually locate the Charlotte airport, while executing an instrument approach in the presence of low-lying fog. In addition, a persistent attempt to visually identify the nearby Carowinds amusement park tower, known as "Carowinds Tower" to pilots, rising to an elevation of 1,314 feet (401 m), or 340 feet (105 m) above ground level (AGL), may have further distracted and confused the flight crew. The first officer (co-pilot) was operating the flight controls, and none of the required altitude callouts were made by the captain, which compounded the flight crew's near total lack of altitude awareness.

During the investigation, the issue of the flammability of passengers' clothing materials was raised. There was evidence that passengers who wore double-knit synthetic fiber clothing articles sustained significantly worse burn injuries during the post-crash fire than passengers who wore articles made from natural fibers.

The NTSB released its final report on May 23, 1975. The NTSB concluded that the accident was caused by the flight crew's lack of altitude awareness and poor cockpit discipline. The NTSB issued the following official Probable Cause statement for the accident:

The flight crew's lack of altitude awareness at critical points during the approach due to poor cockpit discipline in that the crew did not follow prescribed procedure.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_William_Colbert_Jr.


Colbert, c. 1950

James William Colbert Jr. (December 15, 1920 – September 11, 1974) was an American physician and the first vice president of academic affairs at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), serving in this capacity from 1969 until his death in a plane crash in 1974. He is the father of Stephen Colbert and Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

Early life and education
Colbert (along with his twin sister, Margaret) was born on December 15, 1920, in the Bronx in New York City, to Mary (Tormey) and James William Colbert. He was of mostly Irish descent, and was raised in a devout Roman Catholic household. He attended St. Augustine's School in Larchmont, New York for junior high school and Iona Preparatory in New Rochelle for high school. He received his A.B. from College of the Holy Cross in 1942 in philosophy, in which he was deeply interested; nevertheless, he later chose to pursue a medical career because, according to his daughter Margaret Colbert Keegan, "it just seemed to be the thing to do at the time." Colbert was accepted into the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1942, and received his M.D. there three years later, with a focus on immunology and infectious diseases. He then completed an internship at Bellevue Hospital before joining the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1946.

Career
Colbert spent a year in Europe working for the U.S. Army Medical Corps, after which he completed a residency at Yale University School of Medicine. In 1949, he rejoined the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a representative of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, Director of the Hepatitis Research Team, and Technical Director of the Hepatitis Laboratory in Munich, Germany. Also after 1949, he joined the faculty of Yale University School of Medicine, where he was promoted to Assistant Dean in 1951. In 1953, at the age of 32, he left Yale to become the dean of the St. Louis University School of Medicine, making him the youngest dean of a medical school at the time. He remained at St. Louis University until 1961, when he became Associate Director for Extramural Programs at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. During the early 1960s, he served as chair of the St. Louis chapter of the organization Doctors for Kennedy, which was set up to support John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. In 1969, he and his family moved from Washington, D.C., where he had been working for the National Institutes of Health, to South Carolina. He became the first vice president for academic affairs at the Medical University of South Carolina on February 1, 1969, and remained in that position until his death. His work at the Medical University of South Carolina has been credited with "la[ying] the foundation for MUSC's rise as a nationally renowned academic medical center."

Personal life
Colbert married his childhood sweetheart, Lorna Elizabeth Tuck, on August 26, 1944. They soon started a family, and had eleven children together, eight of whom survive: Jim, Ed, Mary, Margo, Tom, Jay, politician and businesswoman Elizabeth Colbert Busch, and comedian Stephen Colbert. Paul and Peter died in the same plane crash that killed their father in 1974, and Bill died in 1999.

Death
Colbert, along with two of his sons, died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 on September 11, 1974, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Recognition
In 2009, MUSC renamed its education center and library in memory of Colbert. In 2017, the first James W. Colbert Endowed Lectureship was held, also at MUSC, in honor of his legacy there. The lectureship was established in his memory by his family.

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[essme]

1. I remember this- happened about 5

miles from my childhood home. One of my friends at the time was a neighbor of a Dr. that was killed on the flight. Very sad.