The Allegheny Airlines Crash

On December 24, 1968, Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 departed Detroit for a flight to Washington, DC, with intermediate stops at Erie, Bradford, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Convair CV-580 took off from Erie at 7:45 PM. At 8:06 the flight began its descent through light snow showers until the aircraft suddenly began to hit treetops along a slope near the runway at the Bradford Airport. The airplane cut an 800-foot swath through the trees and hit the ground. The fuselage came to rest inverted. At the time of the first contact with the trees, the pilots were staring out the windows into the night, attempting to see the lights of the Bradford Regional Airport. Unbeknownst to them, visibility had suddenly worsened, and a small but critical navigational error sent them hurtling into the ground. 20 people died in the crash. After the accident, the FAA introduced sweeping safety regulations regarding poor-weather approach and landing conditions that made lasting differences to air travel in the US.