What happened
On December 16, 1960, at approximately 10:33 e.s.t., a mid-air collision occurred near Miller Army Air Field in Staten Island, New York, involving two aircraft operating under Instrument Flight Rules. The first aircraft, a Trans World Airlines Model 1049A Constellation, registration N 6907C, was traveling from Dayton, Ohio, with an intermediate stop in Columbus, Ohio, en route to LaGuardia Airport. Simultaneously, a United Air Lines DC-8, registration N 8013U, was flying non-stop from Chicago's O'Hare Airport toward New York International Airport.
During the approach phase, LaGuardia Approach Control provided radar vectors to the TWA flight for landing on runway 4. While the crew of the Constellation was notified of nearby traffic, a collision occurred roughly 11 miles past the Preston Intersection. Following the impact, the Model 1049A Constellation crashed at Miller Army Field. The DC-8 continued traveling northeast before crashing into Sterling Place in Brooklyn, causing significant property damage. The accident resulted in 128 fatalities among the occupants of both aircraft and 6 fatalities on the ground.
Findings
The investigation determined that the primary cause was that United Air Lines Flight 826 exceeded its assigned clearance limit and entered airspace not allocated to it by Air Traffic Control. A significant contributing factor was the high velocity of the United DC-8 as it approached the Preston intersection, exacerbated by a revised routing issued by the New York ARTCC that shortened the flight path by approximately 11 miles. This change reduced the time available for the crew to navigate using their single functional VHF radio receiver, as one of the aircraft's two receivers was inoperative.