Civilian Aviation

mustang5861 wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 26, 2018 6:09 pm

The United shot is Convair 340 N73102, which made a wheels-up landing in a vegetable field near Saugus (about 35 miles from its destination) while flying from Fresno to Los Angeles on 30th December 1964. Cause of the incident was fuel starvation: a fuel-pump problem in one engine required the crew chief to cross-feed fuel from the fuel tank for the other engine, but after the stricken engine was restarted both engines fed off the same fuel tank until the juice ran out. Forty-three passengers* and four crew aboard; two minor injuries. After some basic repairs the aircraft was flown out of the field to San Francisco for repairs (local schoolchildren were in attendance to witness the take-off). Subsequently sold by United to Frontier Airlines in September 1966 and converted to a CV 580 in February 1984; later sold on and re-registered as N580AS, then on to Honeywell Corp (N580HW) for use as a flying test-bed.

*When the passengers deplaned after the landing, one old lady asked the captain if this would mean she would miss her connecting flight at LAX!