Braniff Airways Flight 542 was a scheduled flight between Houston International Airport and Idlewild Airport in New York City. On September 29, 1959, while en route to a scheduled stop at Dallas Love Field, the Lockheed L-188 Electra operating the flight broke apart in mid-air without warning, about southeast of Buffalo, Texas. Eyewitnesses who saw the crash said they saw an explosion in the air, and then the aircraft plummeted to the ground. The left wing separated from the plane close to where it attaches to the fuselage and landed more than a mile (twokilometers) from the main crash site. The explosion and resulting crash left no survivors.
The aircraft was almost brand new, and had been in commercial service for only nine days after it was delivered from the factory. Crash investigators combed through the wreckage in search of the cause of the breakup, but after six months, they had still not determined what had caused the wing separation. As they were preparing to close the investigation without determining a probable cause, Northwest Airlines Flight 710 crashed near Cannelton, Indiana. That aircraft was a seven-month-old Lockheed Electra, and witnesses also described seeing it explode in flight before crashing to the ground. Investigators found that the entire right wing and portions of the left wing had broken off that aircraft while it was in flight.
The similarities between the two crashes led to the Federal Aviation Agency placing flight restrictions on the Electra until the cause of the two similar crashes could be identified. It ordered Lockheed Corporation to reevaluate the aircraft's structural integrity and prove its airworthiness. The subsequent investigation, involving over 250 engineers and technicians, found that when an Electra with damage to the mounting structures of one of the engines flew at high speeds or in turbulent conditions, a destructive phenomenon called "whirl mode wing flutter" could occur. The phenomenon caused the wing to flutter severely, causing the metal to fatigue and eventually snap. After discovering the cause of the wing failures, Lockheed launched a program to design structural changes to prevent whirl mode wing flutter and to retrofit all Electras already in service. The changes successfully resolved the issue, and modifications to the final aircraft were completed on July 5, 1961.
Background In 1959, Braniff Airways served 48 cities in 17 states across the United States. The previous year, it had carried more than two million passengers, and at the beginning of 1959 it operated a fleet of 66 piston-engine aircraft. That year, the company planned to put eight new L-188 Electra turboprop aircraft into service. Braniff had ordered nine of the new aircraft in 1955 as part of a $57million (equivalent to $million in ) fleet expansion program. It received the first two aircraft on May 7, 1959, and placed them into service in mid-June. The first routes to use the Electra were flights from Texas to Chicago and from Texas to New York City.
Turbine-powered aircraft were a recent development in the aviation industry and were welcomed by the flying public. Turboprop flights attracted more passengers than comparable piston-powered flights because they were faster and smoother. Airlines operating the Electra promoted it as a faster and more powerful aircraft that would reduce flight times by an average of 20 percent compared with piston-engine aircraft. The Electra cruised approximately faster than any other propeller-driven aircraft of its time. American Airlines, which began operating the Electra between New York and Chicago in January1959, reported that 80 percent of the seats on its Electra flights were sold, 20 percent more than on its piston-engine flights. Eastern Airlines reported that sales on Electra flights were 10 to 15 percent higher than on comparable piston-aircraft flights.
Braniff operated Flight 542 as a regularly scheduled service from Houston International Airport to Idlewild Airport in New York City, with scheduled stops at Dallas Love Field and Washington National Airport. On September 29, 1959, the aircraft assigned to the flight was one of the airline's newest Electras. When it departed Houston, it carried 28 passengers and a crew of six, leaving the aircraft less than half full. Additional passengers were scheduled to board in Dallas for the next leg of the flight. Earlier that day, the aircraft had experienced problems with an engine-driven electrical generator. Repairs performed in Houston delayed Flight 542's departure by 22 minutes. The aircraft left the gate at 10:37p.m., and took off at 10:44. The overnight flight was scheduled to arrive in New York City at 6:20 the following morning.
Accident At 11:05p.m., the aircraft was flying at an altitude of east of Waco, Texas. Visibility was good, with scattered clouds below the aircraft at about . The pilots contacted the San Antonio Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) to report their speed and altitude and to advise that they had crossed a planned waypoint over Leona, Texas. Controllers told them to contact the Fort Worth ARTCC for further clearance. Two minutes later, the pilots contacted Braniff Airways on a private frequency to report several mechanical issues that would require attention upon arrival in Dallas. The aircraft had problems with its propeller de-icing system and one engine had a malfunctioning fuel sump pump. Neither issue was considered a critical emergency, but Braniff's maintenance policies would have prevented the plane from leaving Dallas until the fuel pump issue was resolved.
When Flight 542 failed to check in with Fort Worth Center as instructed, the controllers attempted to contact the crew. After receiving no response, they continued trying to reach the flight for more than 30 minutes. Believing that the aircraft might have been experiencing radio problems, controllers kept air traffic clear of airports in Houston and Dallas in case the crew attempted to land without being able to communicate.
At 11:09p.m., the aircraft broke apart in flight, producing flashes and fire seen by witnesses on the ground. Witnesses described seeing a blinding flash in the sky, followed by a loud clap of thunder and flaming objects falling for several seconds before the flames disappeared. One witness described hearing a series of explosions, sounding like "boom, boom, boom," while others believed the noise was a sonic boom caused by supersonic aircraft from nearby James Connally Air Force Base. An Air Force pilot said he initially thought the sound was that of an atomic bomb exploding. People as far as away reported seeing the explosion.
Over the next five minutes, debris and bodies fell from the sky. The wreckage was scattered across an area approximately long and wide. The nose and the tail section came to rest within of each other and only from a farmhouse, whose occupants described the noise as "like a bulldozer falling out of the sky". Because the farmhouse did not have a telephone, one of the residents drove to the nearby town of Buffalo to notify authorities. There, he encountered a Texas Highway Patrol officer who had already been awakened by the noise. The officer called the regional office of the Texas Department of Public Safety in Waco to report that an aircraft had crashed before proceeding to the farm. By 1:00a.m., eight men and five ambulances had arrived at the scene, and additional personnel arrived during the following hour.
The crash was the fifth fatal accident in Braniff's 31-year history and the first in which there were no survivors. The airline had one of the strongest safety records in the industry, and had received annual safe-operation awards from the National Safety Council. The accident was the second fatal crash involving the Lockheed Electra, which had entered commercial service less than a year earlier.
Aftermath
When first responders arrived at the scene, the aircraft appeared to have exploded before striking the ground. Debris was scattered across acres of dense woodland, and the main impact area covered approximately . Small pieces of the aircraft, personal belongings, and mail littered the ground and hung from trees throughout the area. The victims' bodies were scattered across the ground, in the underbrush, in treetops, and draped over fences. Most were mangled beyond recognition. Fuel was spread throughout the debris field. Most of the larger pieces of wreckage, including the center section of the fuselage, came to rest in a field about from the farmhouse. The nose section and part of the cabin were found in a crater about deep. The largest intact piece of the aircraft was a section of fuselage approximately long. About 90 percent of the forward section of the aircraft had broken into fragments smaller than two square feet (0.2 square meters). The pattern of damage to trees in the debris field indicated that the wreckage had fallen almost vertically from the air.
In the main wreckage area, the only fire on the ground was a small blaze where one of the engines had landed. Of the aircraft's four engines, this was the only one that was found near the main wreckage. Two additional small fires, located about a quarter of a mile (half a kilometer) from the farmhouse, marked the locations of another engine. Several passenger seats were found on the ground in good condition. The seat belts on those seats were unfastened when they were discovered, although investigators could not determine whether the seats had been occupied at the time of the accident.
Hundreds of rescue workers, reporters, and onlookers eventually arrived at the scene, but the Texas Highway Patrol turned away anyone who was not there on official business. More than 100 workers ultimately participated in the initial search for survivors and significant wreckage. The Texas Department of Public Safety closed the roads in the area in an effort to preserve the crash site for investigators. Officers inspected the vehicles of those who had assisted in the search to ensure that no one was leaving with items from the wreckage. Searchers recovered loose diamonds and a case of diamonds valued at more than $200,000 () that had been transported aboard the aircraft. A postal investigator reported that 63 of the 65 mail sacks carried on the flight were found intact.
Human remains were taken to the gymnasium at Buffalo High School, where a temporary morgue was established. The first body was removed from the crash site at about 3:00a.m., and by 8:00, twenty bodies had been recovered. None of the victims could be identified except through personal effects or scraps of clothing. Some remains were sufficiently intact to be recognizable as crash victims, but later recovery efforts involved the slow work of locating and collecting body parts that had been widely scattered and fragmented. Some remains had to be excavated from the ground where they had landed. An eight-member investigative team from the Department of Public Safety arrived in Buffalo at about 4:00a.m. to examine personal belongings in an effort to identify the victims. A second team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrived with fingerprint records for individuals whose names were similar to those on the passenger and crew manifest to assist in identifying the remains. The Washington office of the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) dispatched two doctors to the scene to examine the victims. By the afternoon, investigators had transferred the remains from the high school to a mortuary in Fairfield, north of Buffalo.
By daybreak, searchers still had not located several major components of the aircraft, including two engines and most of the wings. On October 3, investigators brought in Air Force and Army helicopters to assist in locating additional wreckage.
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