American Airlines Flight 1

American Airlines Flight 1 was a domestic, scheduled passenger flight from New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport), New York to Los Angeles International Airport, California that crashed shortly after take-off on 1 March 1962. All 87 passengers and eight crew died in the crash. A Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigation determined that a manufacturing defect in the automatic pilot system led to an uncommanded rudder control system input, causing the accident.

A number of notable people lost their lives in the crash. At the time, Flight 1 was the deadliest aviation accident to occur on US soil. It was also the sixth fatal Boeing 707 crash, and, at the time, the deadliest.

Flight

The aircraft was a Boeing 707-123B, U.S. Registry N7506A. It was manufactured on 12 February 1959, and was delivered to American Airlines on that same day. At the time of the crash, it had accumulated 8,147 flight hours during the course of three years. Its last periodic inspection had occurred on 18 January 1962 at 7,922 hours of air time.(Navigate: Historical Aircraft Accident...
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