On April 1, 1956, a

Martin 4-0-4 The Martin 4-0-4 is an American pressurized passenger airliner built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. In addition to airline use initially in the United States, it was used by the United States Coast Guard and United States Navy as the RM-1G (la ...

, registration #N40403, operating as TWA Flight 400, crashed on takeoff from Greater Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT). Twenty-two of the 36 people aboard the aircraft, including one crewmember (Hostess Mary Jane Fanning), perished in the evening crash on

Easter Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...

Sunday. Flight 400 was to be an eastbound

IFR In aviation, instrument flight rules (IFR) is one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other is visual flight rules (VFR). The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ''Instrument Fly ...

flight from Pittsburgh to

Newark International Airport Newark Liberty International Airport is a major international airport serving the New York metropolitan area. The airport straddles the boundary between the cities of Newark in Essex County and Elizabeth in Union County, in the U.S. sta ...

(EWR) in

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, with scheduled stops in eastern

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Harrisburg Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...

, and

Allentown Allentown may refer to: Places * Allentown, California, now called Toadtown, California * Allentown, Georgia, a city in four counties in Georgia * Allentown, Illinois, an unincorporated community in Tazewell County * Allentown, New Jersey, a boroug ...

. On this particular flight, the first officer (Harlan V. Jesperson) was in the left seat, as he was being line-checked by the captain (Raymond F. McQuade); both pilots survived.

Takeoff and crash

As the aircraft became airborne from runway 23 (since removed), a sharp yaw was experienced while the first officer reduced power at an altitude of approximately . Almost immediately, the fire warning light for the number one engine illuminated; however, the fire warning bell never sounded. At this point, the first officer is thought to have throttled down the number one engine. The captain had only noted the loss of power shown by the BMEP gauge, but never saw the fire warning light; he pulled the mixture to idle cutoff. As the first officer reached for the manual

feathering Feathering is a technique used in computer graphics software to smooth or blur the edges of a feature. The term is inherited from a technique of fine retouching using fine feathers. Paintbrush feathering Feathering is most commonly used on a ...

button, the captain stopped him. The captain indicated that the autofeather device would feather the no. 1 prop. This never occurred, due to the throttle lever being retarded to a position aft of the switches that arm the auto-feathering system. The no. 1 prop created sufficient drag, causing the aircraft to continue to yaw to the left. At only past the runway's end, the aircraft crashed at 7:20 PM. The fire warning appears to have been caused by an exhaust connector clamp failure. Hot exhaust gases were blown directly onto an overheat detector.

Cause

Probable cause of the crash has been determined as: "Uncoordinated emergency action in the very short time available to the crew, which produced an aircraft configuration with insurmountable drag".

References

External links

Report
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Civil Aeronautics Board The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1940 from a split of the Civil Aeronautics Authority and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services (including scheduled passe ...

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Newspaper article: survivor's story (subscription or library access required)
{{coord, 40.487, -80.208, type:event_globe:earth_region:US-PA, display=title History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1956 Accidents and incidents involving the Martin 4-0-4 1956 in Pennsylvania Airliner accidents and incidents in Pennsylvania

400 __NOTOC__ Year 400 (Roman numerals, CD) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Stilicho and Aurelianus (consul 400), Aurelianus (or, less frequently, year ...

April 1956 in the United States Pittsburgh International Airport Moon Township, Pennsylvania