Park Slope & Staten Island Plane Midair & Crash . . . Dec 16, 1960

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mack

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2nd alarm for SI crash site. Plane crash landed at Miller Field, a small Army airport New Dorp Beach. RIP. BC Carmody, 23 BN, had incident. Engine 165, still new, was first company to arrive. Did not wait for MPs to open airfield gate when they saw flaming wreckage. They drove right thru fence with Ladder 85 behind. No buildings involved on SI.

Brooklyn site of major destruction and fire damage.
 
1261Truckie

1261Truckie

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Continued Rest in Peace for all those lost on that day. Continued thoughts and prayers for those who were impacted by the events (families, residents of the areas involved and those who responded to and operated in the two crash sites). The Brooklyn operation made quite an impression on the first alarm companies. God bless the men who worked in and around the Pillar of Fire Church in Brooklyn.
 
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entropychaser

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Several years ago I talked to a woman who was in the fourth grade of the school I believe was on President Street behind Engine 269. Her class was on the top floor. The class watched in sudden horror as the burning United DC-8 staggered past their window.
 
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Jon Jon

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Is there somewhere on here that would have all the Alarms transmitted and all the companies that made the run?
 
1261Truckie

1261Truckie

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Jon Jon
On the Brooklyn side of this incident:
Box 1231 - 269, 280, 219 - 105, 132 - BC 48, 32
75-1231 - Res 2, DC 10
22-1231 - 220, 226, 256 - 122
33-1231 - 210, 239, 204, 207 - 110
10-1231-1 - Res 1 S/C
44-1231 - 249, 235, 203, 209 - 113
55-1231 - 240, 248, 279, 102
5-1231-205 - 205 S/C
10-1231-4 - Res 4 S/C
77-1231-66-22-174 - Engines 9, 55, 31, 17, 15, 7, 27 from Manhattan

Information from WNYF Winter 1961 Issue

I do not have a run down for the Staten Island response
 
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mack

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Staten Island (Borough of Richmond in 1960) response could have been:

E 165 E 159 L 85 L 82 B 23 on initial alarm
E 162 R 5 B 21 - completed full 1st alarm assignment

2nd Alarm
E 161 E 160 E 152 L 81 L 83

Went to 2nd alarm on arrival. E 165 crashed thru military base fence to gain access to downed aircraft on base runway. No structures involved. May have been Army military base fire company response. Heavy NYPD response.

E 165 and L 85 were new companies. L 81 had recently relocated from E 159 to E 161. Normal Richmond assignment was 2 engines, 2 trucks and BC on boxes. 3rd due engine, all hands chief and division would be assigned to working fires/all hands signals. VN Bridge to Brooklyn still under construction - FDNY units from Brooklyn and Manhattan took the ferries - although not needed for this catastrophe. Only survivor was boy on SI crash site who died in the hospital. There were also no near-by hospitals to the New Dorp area in 1961 (probably Rich Memorial Hospital in Pleasant Plains).

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mack

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Staten Island airfields to include Miller Field in New Dorp - site of 2nd plane wreckage (fortunately aircraft did not land in populated housing and business areas adjacent to the US Army Airfield).




Do you remember when Miller Field was an actual airport?​

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Many Staten Islanders were shocked when a small plane landed in Miller Field, New Dorp, Wednesday evening.


However, for most of the last century, this would have been a regular occurrence.

Upon its completion in 1921, the Aero Defense Base at Miller Field was the only coastal defense air station in the eastern United States and was part of the network of fortifications around New York City.


Originally part of the Vanderbilt estate, the government paid $100,000 for the land.

It was also the last airport with a grass runway in New York City. In those days, Miller Field was used for anti-aircraft fire and training Coast Guard personnel.

Miller Field was named after James Ely Miller, a captain of the 95th Fighter Squadron in the Air Force, who died in combat on March 10, 1918. Miller was the first United States aviator killed in World War I who was serving with an American military aviation unit.

It became the home of the 27th Division Air Corps of the National Guard and the Army; several famous fliers landed there, including Lindbergh and Adm. Richard Byrd.

Miller Field closed as an airbase in 1969 and is now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area.

Fifty years later, Miller Field saw its first plane landing -- accidental of course -- since being shut down as an airbase.

On Wednesday evening, the pilot of a banner-in-the-sky plane made an emergency landing on the field.

A video posted to SILive.com shows the plane descending from the sky while a group of children are playing in the park. Spectators gazed in awe at the unusual sight of an aircraft being towed away from the field the following morning.

While it may be a surprise to many that Miller Field was once an airport, Staten Island actually boasted five airfields at different times in the borough’s history:

1. Baldwin’s Flying Field, Oakwood, est. 1910
2. The Aero Defense Base at Miller Field, New Dorp, est. 1919
3. The Donovan-Hughes Airport, New Springville-Greenridge, est. 1926

4. The Staten Island Airport, New Springville-Greenridge, est. 1941 (now the site of the Staten Island Mall)
5. Richmond County Airport, Travis, est. 1941

www.silive.com

Do you remember when Miller Field was an actual airport?

Many Staten Islanders were shocked when a small plane landed in the New Dorp park Wednesday evening. However, years ago this would have been a regular occurrence.
www.silive.com www.silive.com
 
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*******

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Was on the job less than a year when these planes went down. Was assigned then at 74 engine. Worked a 6x9 (no 24's then) the night after the planes crashed. At the start of the tour the Captain told me that I was detailed to the crash site for the tour. A van pulled up to qtrs with 3 ff's in the back. I climbed on and the van took us to the Bklyn crash site. Bitter cold night, some snow on the ground. Bunch of ff's were sorting through the debris, I joined them. A carboard box was being passed on to however found something, body part, etc. The women then traveled in fur coats. When a piece of fur was found we didn't know if it was from a persons hair or a coat. So we just put it in the box. Officer in charge had us work one hour on and one hour off due to the cold. On the off hour we spent it in a bowling alley near the crash site. At 0900 the van came back and we were dropped off at a time at our qtrs. I remember the crash site, all the burned out buildings with the tail of the plane sitting on a truck. I didn't know how the first in units began to fight the fires with so many buildings involved. A nearby taxi garage was being used as a temporary morgue. When a body was found or a piece of one the bag used to transfer the body to the morgue was written on it either plane or building.
 
Capttomo

Capttomo

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Great post and great additional comments with quite a bit of excellent information. I was just a toddler then but my Dad responded to the scene when he was in NYPD ESU. Years later he told us all about that horrible day.
 
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Suitcasesam

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The only survivor was a 9 or 10 year old who died in the Methodist hospital. There is a small “monument” or , display of some coins that are melted together. Supposedly from his pockets.
 
Rich M

Rich M

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It was the change he had in his pocket. 4DC3F155-6B15-4757-A9A9-8607BB2A7B96.jpeg
On December 16, 1960, two commercial airliners crashed into each other over Brooklyn, killing 134 people in the air and on the ground. There was only one survivor: 11-year-old Stephen Baltz, who somehow landed in a snowbank. He appeared to have miraculously escaped, even describing the crash from his hospital bed. But he was also badly burned, and died the next day.

Stephen's relatives took the change from Stephen's pocket -- four dimes and five nickels -- and put it into the hospital poor box. The coins were quickly retrieved, then embedded into a small bronze plaque that was screwed onto the rear wall of the hospital chapel. It's still there today. "Stephen Baltz Memorial" it reads, next to the nickels and dimes. "Our Tribute to a Brave Little Boy."
 
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