Northwest Lockheed L-188A Electra - 'Tell City Crash' - 1960

For educational & non commercial purposes only. Rare Police film about the infamous & disastrous Tell City, Indiana crash on March 17, 1960, due to flutter caused by originally unexplained reduced stiffness of the engine mounts. This was subsequently defined as "Whirl Mode."; when the oscillations of the engines caused the tremendous strain, then failure, of the wing and attach points. Six months earlier, a Braniff International Airways L-188 Electra, Flight 542, disintegrated over Buffalo, Texas at 15,000 ft (4,600 m), killing all on board. By 1962, all Electras had been modified, and the problem ceased. Be sure to check my channel for the best in VINTAGE & RARE airliner videos!

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[wrightflyer]

I remember this from when I was a boy living in Taiwan (my father was a U.S. Army officer assigned to MAAG Taiwan at the time). And....after we returned to the States I flew as an unaccompanied minor on an L-188 to visit my grandparents. I'm 70 years old now and will never forget that flight, especially the cockpit tour. Can't do that anymore. Anyone interested in this aircraft should read 'The Electra Story' by Robert J. Serling, Rod Serling's brother. Thanks for the memories!

[Hazwaste]

Reminds me of the educational movies we watched in school back in the 60s.  For some reason we had to have to have chirpy music and cheerful narrators for every subject, no matter how morose.

[slong]

In 1960 my family flew from L.A. to St Louis on a TWA Super Connie, then from St Louis to Evansville, IN in a DC3. Same trip in 1962 flew on a 707 and Lockheed Electra. We were waiting for our connecting flight to Evansville and I was asking my dad which plane we would be flying on this time. He looked out the window and said "it looks like we are flying on an Electra and they've been having trouble with those, some propellers falling off." And then he realized what he said, about the same moment my mom just lost it. After a lot of explaining, and my mom taking some medicine, we had an uneventful flight to Evansville. Smoother than a DC3. (I was watching out the window the whole time hoping a propeller didn't come off).

[brianarbenz]

I grew up just 60 miles from the crash site and was born the same year as the youngest victim, 2-year-old Richard Thomas Schalfen. He died with his two older sisters, mother and family maid. The children's father was Morris Schalfen, the CEO of Holiday on Ice and one of the original owners of the Minneapolis Lakers. So successful in life, but all the important things were taken away from him so cruelly. He remarried, started a new life and kept Holiday on Ice a great show. Such a resilient person to have endured all this.

[nicholastaylor]

So crazy story about this flight. My grandpa was flying to Florida for spring training for baseball. Got on an earlier flight and didn’t take that one. Everyone thought he was dead or seriously injured but he was safe and sent a telegram back home once he figured out it had crashed to let people know he alive!

[graemewilliams]

An airspeed limitation of 250 knots was placed on the L188A until modifications could be carried out. This involved strengthening the Allison 501 D13 engine nacelle structures with additional bracing & additional wing skinning.

[wildmouse]

I grew up near Tell City and people there still talk about this crash. They also still lovingly maintain a memorial to the victims.

[famospilot]

The copilot on that plane had been a classmate of mine in pre-flight training in the Air Force in 1953.

[kingofcanton]

This aircraft, the Lockheed 188 Electra, has always been one of my all time favorites. Born in 1956 I recall hearing of vibration issues/problems in the prop-jets of the day. Having flown on Eastern Airlines L-188 from Tampa to Indianapolis is was quite the thrill...this would have been around 1966 or 1968...I can remember feeling the vibration of the aircraft. It was still a wonderful experience. So sad to hear about this crash as I was too young to notice or remember. May all of the victims RIP.

[marksamuelsen]

Hey Randy 109 you’re absolutely 100% correct. I’m a couple years older than you and I miss the way we were as people and a country. I did feel it once since the end of the seventies and that was on 09/11/01 but that may have been just me. I don’t know. My children do not read newspapers and barley care about what’s going on around the world or around the block.. As long as it doesn’t directly screw with their plans for the day. Sad. I really tried to educate them early but it didn’t take. A few more generations down the road is gunna be strange. I hope my great great great grand children know what America is.

[georgethomas]

That's why phase angles and adjustments are crucial to eliminate the vibration. Had to set those on C-130's in the AF after engine changes and such.

[rmooreg]

I find the fixation on the food that the responders were provided bizarre. More than once the film abruptly segues from a somber description of the devastating jumble of body parts and wreckage into an upbeat, rosy detailed rundown of the delicious, nutritious meals that were served to those working the crash site... Yum Yum ! It sounded like a commercial or a PR spot for school lunches or something. I guess it was a different era, but still...WTF?

[liamgibson]

What happy jonty music for a plane crash, literally when he goes "and they search for tissue and body parts from this VIOLENT accident" And the music is like something from Bambi.

[NigelZoom]

The problem discovered turn out to be vibrational frequency waves. Certain engine cruise power settings caused a vibration that happened to coincide with the vibrational frequency of the engines and when all 4 engines where operated in sync at that particular setting the resulting vibrations would increase in amplitude until the design limits of the wing attache points was reached resulting in a catastrophic failure. Unfortunately this phenomenon was not discovered until these terrible accidents.

[bobbypaluga]

I've read the local paper covering the accident, with testimony from the local farmers and those who dug through e mud to find the pieces of the aircraft and its passengers. This was the most difficult accident I' have ever read about

[HannahLarsen-usmx]

My grandfather was killed in this crash. I think about him all of the time. A lot of these comments are so heartwarming and much appreciated, but a lot of you should not be allowed a space on the internet.

[Thunderbolt__Siren]

The track at 0:27 is also from a UP rail safety film.

[tonysmith]

It's sad that we don't look out for one another like they did back in those days

[dashercronin]

Great aeroplane to fly on once they fixed the problem. Big cabin and big comfortable seats and they were quick. Flew on them several times on KLM. They identified the whirl mode problem when the air investigation teams discovered pieces of the port wing embedded in the starboard wing. One of the last turboprops to make it commercially before the jets arrived.

[endwood]

That's the first piston engined Electra I've ever seen take off:-)