American Airlines Flight 1502

The aircraft was a Boeing 707-123, registered in the United States as N7502A and named Flagship Oklahoma. First flown on November 2, 1958, it was delivered new to American Airlines on January 23, 1959.[2] The aircraft was valued at approximately $5 million.

The crew on board the flight were captains Lloyd D. Reinhard, with Robert Hinman, John B. Coyne, Herbert J. Thing, Jr., flight instructor Harold Engh, and trainee Howard Loren Sturdy.[3]

Flight 1502 departed Idlewild Airport into clear skies at 11:00 a.m. EDT (UTC−4), with Captain Reinhard at the yoke. 57 minutes later, the aircraft made its last radio contact.[4]

At 12:20 p.m. EDT (UTC−4), Airman First Class James F. Ross was driving on the Montauk Highway and caught Flight 1502 passing overhead at an estimated 100 feet, in a 60–70° dive. Ross pulled his car to the side of the highway as the 707 disappeared behind sand dunes. Also present on the highway was Captain Frank Ward, a local fisherman from Montauk who said the aircraft did multiple rolls, straightening out before impact, and that an engine was reportedly on fire.[5] In a steep, left wing low attitude, Flight 1502 crashed into the shallow waters off of Napeague Beach, killing the six occupants.[1] Emergency crews rushed to the scene to find the aircraft extensively fragmented, with some seats reportedly split in half by the force of the crash.[6] The crash was the fourth involving a modern jetliner in the New York metropolitan area in the past two years, amounting to a total 149 lives lost. This included what was at the time the world's deadliest aviation disaster, the 1960 New York mid-air collision, that only occurred the previous month.

When the accident occurred, the crew could have been partaking in an engine shutdown and restart, a canyon approach, or was en route to engine climb manouveres. Canyon approach procedures require a flap setting of 30 degrees, and the wreckage seemed to corroborate this setting. However, the evidence was inconclusive to find a cause for the loss of control. As such, the FAA officially gave a probable cause as "A loss of control for an undetermined reason". Additionally, there was consideration that two engines were inoperative at impact, but this could not be concisely proven.[7] As a result of this speculation, and the crash of another American Airlines 707 on a training flight over Long Island in 1959, the FAA removed the requirement for all 707 flight crews to practice landings with two failed engines on the same wing.

• American Airlines Flight 514 – another American Airlines 707 training flight that crashed on Long Island in 1959
• 1960 New York mid-air collision – at the time, the deadliest aviation accident in history, which occurred only a month before the crash of Flight 1502
• American Airlines Flight 1 – another American Airlines 707 that crashed after takeoff from Idlewild in 1962
• XL Airways Germany Flight 888T – a training flight that also resulted in a crash in 2008

• Pither, Tony (1998). The Boeing 707 720 and C-135. England: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. ISBN 0 85130 236 X.
• Roach, John; Eastwood, Tony (1992). Jet Airliner Production List. West Drayton, England: The Aviation Hobby Shop. ISBN 0 907178 43 X.