I think that this accident speaks volumes about how much aviation has progressed in the last 70 years. It was 23:37, which was actually when the aircraft was expected to overfly Milwaukee and check in. "I was like, 'Mom, you have to come look at this; it says – NWA Flight. One passenger was so late, he almost missed the flight. All 58 aboard people died. But the thought of a transcontinental airline flight operating at altitudes this low is amazing from today’s perspective. Did the captain use poor judgment or suffer from lack of accurate information? If all aboard are lost, the crash will be the most disastrous in the history of American commercial aviation. This forecast predicted widespread thunderstorm activity and described the development of a squall line extending from southern Wisconsin eastward into lower Michigan and moving south. Northwest continued to operate under its own brand until 2010. The captain requested an altitude of 4,000 for the initial routing to Minneapolis but Air Traffic Control were not able to approve it, as they had other traffic assigned to that level. Body parts began to wash up on the shore. Until recently, the only known mass burial grave site for victims was at Riverview Cemetery in St. Joseph. This piece aired July 2, 2015. At the time, it was the largest aviation disaster ever in the U.S. The radio operator incorrectly copied this down as 23:27. Flight 2501 left New York the night of June 23, 1950, en route to Seattle, with a planned stop in Minneapolis. Another mass burial site for 2501 crash victims was discovered in 2015 at Lakeview Cemetery in South Haven. A sad story. They loaded the boats with sonar equipment and sent divers down where strong sonar contacts were made. Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency team was continuing a search operation for the 62 people aboard Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, which … NWA Flight 2501 was considered the worst aviation crash of its time and as one of the greatest tragedies of the Great Lakes. Despite efforts by dive crews and sonar experts from (NUMA) National Underwater and Marine Agencyand the (MSRA) Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, no wreckage of the plane has ever been recovered, and no official cause for the crash has ever been determined. They discussed the weather situation with the dispatcher and examined the hourly sequence reports. Northwest Orient Flight 2501 crashed somewhere off the coast of South Haven, killing all 58 souls on board. My instructor who flew B-17s in Europe showed me how to use the ADF AM radio to detect lightning, but it would have been obvious at night and would have illuminated the cloud bases as well. The craft was due over Milwaukee at 1:27 A.M. and at Minneapolis at 3.23 A.M. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed media in Ottawa today, regarding downed passenger flight PS752, which saw the tragic death of 176, including 57 Canadians. The cause of the disappearance of Flight 2501 is unknown. Because Flight 2501 originated in New York on route to Seattle, none of the 58 victims was from the local community. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. It’s grievous to contemplate 58 lives cut short and the fact that the crash was apparently quite violent. The entire area was also dragged with grapnel hooks in the hopes of pulling something to the surface, to no avail. Further floating fragments was found in the area but they could not find the aircraft wreckage. At 21:33 the Weather Bureau issued a regional forecast for the period 22:00 to the following morning at 10:00. She added that her crew recently picked up an interesting target on sonar, and they will soon have divers explore it. The cushions and arm rests were shredded from the impact, which means that the aircraft must have struck the water at high speed. The ultimate hope is that one day the plane will be found, but until that day comes, more victims of the tragedy can rest in peace knowing that after 65 years, they have finally been found. A squall line means heavy rain, hail, lightning, strong winds and even tornadoes. There were 55 passengers on board, including two families travelling with their children and three pregnant women. They had many options – go South, stop at BTL, KZO, SBN, Gary….all have long runways. i hope one day the plain is found and the peoples family is notified. They are bright orange and, while carefully sealed, there is nothing mysterious about them. Families of victims of Flight 752 will receive $25,000 per victim, says Trudeau. The aircraft must have crashed. I would have avoided a squall line at all cost and flown South of the lake and then North. There are similarities with the 1981 crash of a Fokker F28 of NLM, the short-haul arm of KLM and later renamed KLM Cityhopper on a flight from Rotterdam (EHRD) to Eindhoven (EHEH). It’s possible that there was a mechanical failure mid-flight, but the aircraft appeared to be in good condition and normally the flight crew would have reported as soon as they realised there were any issues. Coast Guard officials initially believed that there must have been a terrible mid-air explosion to disintegrate the bodies so badly. But that is no help if the instruments themselves are no longer giving the proper references. Three flights turned back, refusing to carry on into the severe turbulence at the edge of the storm. All 58 people aboard the flight on … And this in an age when there was a lot more known about meteorology, thunderstorms and squall lines. A sad story. The DC-4E (E for experimental) was flight tested in 1939. All air and surface craft suspended search operations off Milwaukee at nightfall except the Coast Guard cutter Woodbine. June 26 – Australian National Airways Amana, a Douglas DC-4, crashes after takeoff from Perth Airport, killing all 29 people on board. Soon, South Beach, popular with tourists, was forced to close because of the large number of body parts that washed in. Severe storms were developing over Lake Michigan as Flight 2501 exited the shoreline somewhere between Glenn, Michigan, and South Haven, Michigan. The final flight plan had a cruising altitude of 6,000 feet to Minneapolis. I have a commercial license, but have never flown commercially. The search effort began in 2004 as a joint venture between author and explorer Clive Cussler and the MSRA. Visibility was less than eight inches. The flight crew acknowledged that the descent was not approved and the flight continued at 3,500 feet. Air Traffic Control declined the request as there was other traffic at that level. On Expedition Unknown, Josh Gates searches for a commercial airliner that mysteriously vanished on June 23, 1950 while flying between New York City and Seattle. That route always kept me below the Ohare Class A/TRSA back then, probably at 2,500. This was the last communication from the flight. Captain Robert Lind was in command of flight 2501, carrying 55 passengers from New York to Minneapolis and then Seattle. June 24 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501, a Douglas DC-4, with 58 people on board, disappears without a trace over Lake Michigan. Drapak was among about 50 people who attended a memorial at Lakeview Cemetery in South Haven Wednesday, at a recently discovered grave site of the presumed victims of Northwest Airlines … Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 was a DC-4 propliner operating its daily transcontinental service between New York City and Seattle when it disappeared on the night of June 23, 1950. But in the early fifties, aviation was not the routine activity that it is today. South Haven Mayor Robert Burr, along with Craig Rich from the MSRA, read off all of the 58 victims' names. SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. (WZZM) – Sixty-five years ago, the worst tragedy in aviation history at that time happened along the shores of Lake Michigan. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. As is almost always the case, the popular press gets it wrong when it comes to matters of aviation. People bought flight insurance and I doubt that many travelers realized that their chances of being killed as the drove to the airport were much greater than their chance of being killed in an aircraft accident on a commercial flight. I think the lake is about 650 MSL so they would only have had 2900′ to recover. Some were described as “shredded”. After the second world war, Northwest established a hub at Tokyo and the first direct service between the United States and Japan using a Douglas DC-4 airliner. I doubt that the old-fashioned artificial horizon would have been of any use to the hapless DC4 crew once in a violent “unusual attitude”. Find cheap flights in seconds, explore destinations on a map, and sign up for fare alerts on Google Flights. Even if they would have had enough altitude, they may not have had sufficient visual cues to enable them to recover. Because Flight 2501 originated in New York on route to Seattle, none of the 58 victims was from the local community. The only pieces of the aircraft which were recovered were fragments which could float free: foam rubber cushions, arm rests, clothing, blankets, pillows, pieces of luggage, a fuel tank float, cabin lining, plywood flooring and other wooden parts. However, according to his notes, he expected Flight 2501 to fly over at 23:27. passengers and crew of United 93 including todd beamer and Thomas burnett jr Although the controllers had the information available, they did not think to do so either. On the other side of Lake Michigan, Northwest Radio at Milwaukee became concerned. Flight 2501 was missing. Although flying at different altitude or flight level (the DC4 was not pressurized), both flights crossed an area of known and intense thunderstorm activity. What happened the night Northwest Flight 2501 disappeared, and do answers lie in the chilly depths of Lake Michigan? The plane struck the water with considerable force: that’s all that we know. Even if the wreckage is found, the metal may have deteriorated to the point where clues of the cause (mid-air break-up? That evening, after 11 hours of searching, a US coast guard cutter discovered an oil slick on Lake Michigan about 18 miles north-northwest of Benton Harbor, the southern edge of the squall the night of the accident. The Detroit News. CAB Accident Investigation Report, Docket SA-215, File 1-0081 can be found online at United States Department of Transportation Library under Investigations of Aircraft Accidents 1934 – 1965. By morning, it was clear that Flight 2501 had crashed. The aircraft was powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 892 engines and configured to carry 282 passengers in total capacity. The airplane, a four-engine ‘air coach’ bound from New York to Minneapolis and Seattle, was last heard from at 1:13 o’clock this morning, New York Time, when it reported that it was over Lake Michigan, having crossed the eastern shore line near South Haven, Mich. (Thereafter I was hooked and I got my Private Certificate as soon as I could afford it.) In his last report, Captain Lind requested permission to descend from 3,500 to 2,500 feet because of a severe electrical storm which was lashing the lake with high velocity winds. Chances are the passengers experienced disorientation and may never have fully realized what was happening.