Engine Fire

Only a few stood in the chill Sunday sun as the pot-bellied Curtiss Commando began to roll along the east-west runway of Newark Airport. Aboard the crowded war-surplus craft: four crewmen, 52 passengers, bound for Tampa at nonscheduled Miami Airline's bargain rates ($39.74 for grownups, half fare for children). The heavily loaded Commando gathered speed, got her tail up. Black smoke plumed from her, and swirled in the propeller blast.

Newark control tower to airport crash crew, 3:04 p.m.: "Get out on Field. Stay off runway. Craft taking off to W-L-st. Smoking right engine."

The Commando weighed off the runway, climbed heavily, went into a left-hand turn. From the pilot went a terse message to the control tower.

Control tower to crash crew: "He's coming back in on Runway 6. He's on fire."

Fighting for altitude, the Commando swung over Elizabeth (pop. 112,000), just south of the field. The pilot had feathered the right-hand propeller, but flames reddened the smoke from the engine nacelle. From the streets of Elizabeth hundreds watched his fight to get back to the airport. The fight was lost almost as they looked up. With an explosive crump the right wing tore off and the Commando plunged toward the ground.

Control tower to crash crew: "He's crashed."

In muddy Elizabeth River lay the flaming wreckage of the Miami Airline's Commando and the bodies of all 56 of her occupants, killed in the second worst crash in U.S. history.*

* The worst: June 24, 1950, when a Northwest Airlines DC-4 disappeared over Lake Michigan with 58 people on board.

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