United Air Lines Flight 608
Douglas DC-6 · In-flight fire, design flaw
From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 52 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 52
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Douglas DC-6
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-6
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- NC37510
- Operator
- United Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- 52
- Route
- From Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)To Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW)
Cause areas
- Organizational issues › Development
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
United Air Lines Flight 608 was a Douglas DC-6 airliner, registration NC37510, on a scheduled passenger flight from Los Angeles to Chicago when it crashed at 12:29 pm on October 24, 1947, about 1.5 mi southeast of Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah, United States. All five crew members and 47 passengers on board were killed. It was the first crash of a DC-6, and at the time, it was the second-deadliest air crash in the United States, surpassed by Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 by only one fatality.
Accident
United Air Lines Flight 608 departed from Los Angeles International Airport, California, at 10:23 am on a routine flight and climbed to 19,000 feet (FL190) to Chicago, Illinois. At 12:21 pm, the airplane's pilot, Captain Everett L. McMillen, radioed that a fire was in the baggage compartment, which they could not control, with smoke entering the passenger cabin. The flight requested an emergency clearance to Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah, which was granted.
As it descended, pieces of the airplane, including portions of the right wing, started to fall off, and one of the emergency flares on the wing ignited. At 12:27 pm, the last radio transmission was heard from the airplane: "We may make it – approaching a strip." Accounts from observers state the airplane passed over the canyon mesa, about 1500 yards from the airstrip. With gusts from the canyon floor flowing down the side of the mesa, the crippled aircraft, only 10 ft off the ground, was pulled out of control and crashed.
Ground observers reported that occupants of the airliner, prior to the impact, were throwing various items out of the cabin door in an attempt to lighten the load as the DC-6 descended over the canyon. The airliner crashed onto National Park Service land, killing all 52 passengers and crew on board.
The October 25, 1947, edition of the Bridgeport Post reported:
Investigation and cause
Cause
Just over three weeks later, on November 11, 1947, a similar in-flight incident almost claimed a second commercial DC-6 airliner.
An American Airlines DC-6 (NC90741), on a flight from San Francisco to Chicago with 25 crew and passengers aboard, reported an on-board fire over Arizona and managed to make an emergency landing in flames at the airport at Gallup, New Mexico. All 25 occupants escaped the burning plane, and the fire was extinguished. Unlike the Bryce Canyon crash a month earlier, investigators now had a damaged, but intact aircraft to examine and study.
The cause of both the Bryce Canyon crash and the near-fatal Gallup incident was eventually traced to a design flaw. A cabin heater intake scoop was positioned too close to the number 3 alternate fuel tank air vent. If flight crews allowed a fuel tank to be overfilled during a routine fuel transfer between wing tanks, it could lead to several gallons of excess fuel flowing out of the tank vent and then being sucked into the cabin heater system, which then ignited the fuel. This caused the fire that destroyed the United aircraft at Bryce Canyon and severely damaged the American aircraft that landed in flames at Gallup.
In the Bryce Canyon crash, the Civil Aeronautics Board found the causes to be the design flaw, inadequate training of the crew about the danger, and the failure of the crew to halt the fuel transfer before the tank overflowed.
Text from the Wikipedia article “United Air Lines Flight 608” (revision 1339308524, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: United Air Lines Flight 608
- Article
- United Air Lines Flight 608
- Revision
- 1339308524 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4119077
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "United Air Lines Flight 608" (page 11311235, revision 1339308524)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- flight number in the article title
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.