Allegheny Airlines Flight 736
Convair 580 · Controlled flight into terrain
From Detroit, MI to Bradford Regional Airport (BFD)
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
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 20 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 47
- Survivors
- 27
- 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
- 27
- 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
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Convair 580
- Aircraft type
- Convair 580
- Category
- Airplane
- 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
- N5802
- Operator
- Allegheny Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Detroit, MITo Bradford Regional Airport (BFD)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passenger service)
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Collided with trees
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Instruments-misread or failed to read
- Pilot in command › Improper IFR operation
- Weather › Snow
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Allegheny Airlines Flight 736 was a regularly scheduled flight that crashed while attempting to land at Bradford Regional Airport in Bradford, Pennsylvania, on December 24, 1968. Of the 47 occupants on board, 20 were killed.
Flight
Flight 736 took off from Detroit, Michigan bound for Washington D.C., with intermediate stops in Erie, Bradford, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The flight was uneventful until the aircraft began its approach to Bradford.
At 19:57 Eastern Standard Time, Flight 736 reported passing a DME east of Erie, and was instructed to descend to 4,000 feet and cleared for an approach to Bradford. At the same time, Flight 736 was advised that, at the last hourly observation, Bradford weather reported light snow showers, blowing snow, and one mile visibility. At 20:05, Bradford approach controllers advised Flight 736 again of light snow, blowing snow, and one mile visibility. Flight 736 acknowledged each weather advisory. At 20:08, Flight 736 reported that they were turning inbound for runway 32 and they were informed the wind was 290 degrees at 15 knots. This was Flight 736's last transmission before the crash.
Flight 736 continued to descend until the aircraft first struck trees approximately 2-1/8 nautical miles short of the runway, and under a mile northwest of the Kinzua Bridge. The airplane cut through the trees for a further 800 feet, extensively damaging the engines, until it impacted the ground. The fuselage came to rest inverted with the top portion (roof) of the fuselage torn away. Most of the survivors were seated toward the back of the aircraft and were wearing seatbelts, remaining in their seats until the plane came to a halt. Passengers who were able to free themselves then worked to free the remaining survivors. Due to a blinding snowstorm, rescue workers were initially prevented from reaching the crash site. Survivors started a bonfire outside of the aircraft using wood, seat cushions, and luggage to keep warm and attract rescuers to the crash site.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the accident. After reviewing the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, the NTSB determined that the flight was flawless until the flight reached a DME 2.9 miles from the airport. The minimum altitude at the 2.9 mile DME was 2,900 feet above mean sea level; after reaching the DME, Flight 736 was authorized only to descend to the minimum descent altitude (MDA) of 2,543 feet. However, the aircraft continued to descend below the MDA until it contacted the trees at an altitude 462 feet below the MDA. The NTSB concluded that neither pilot was aware of the aircraft's proximity to the ground until initial contact with trees, at which point the first officer yelled, "Pull up." The pilots then attempted to pull up, but one second later the right wing struck a large tree, causing the aircraft to roll over.
The investigators focused on determining why the pilots allowed the aircraft to descend below the MDA. Crew fatigue, instrument or autopilot malfunction, and other mechanical issues were all considered and dismissed as unlikely causes. The NTSB concluded that the most likely explanation was that the descent was unintentional and resulted from both pilots looking away from the instruments, having instead focused on making visual contact with the runway. Based on cockpit conversations and weather data, the NTSB also concluded that while light snow and 1-mile visibility was reported to the pilots from the Bradford airport, weather conditions and visibility may have been substantially worse in the final approach area.
The NTSB determined the probable cause to be "the continuation of the descent from the final approach fix through the Minimum Descent Altitude and into obstructing terrain at a time when both flight crewmembers were looking outside the aircraft in an attempt to establish visual reference to the ground. Contributing factors were the minimal visual references available at night on the approaches to the Bradford Regional Airport; a small but critical navigational error during the later stages of the approach; and a rapid change in visibility conditions that was not known to the crew."
Text from the Wikipedia article “Allegheny Airlines Flight 736” (revision 1372688872, 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
NTSB remarks
FAP ENCTRD SNW SHWRS,DRG ATMT TO ESTABLISH VISUAL GND RE,PLT DSNDD THROUGH MDA,STRUCK TREES.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Allegheny Airlines Flight 736
- Revision
- 1372688872 · 2026-09-01 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4731272
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19681224P023266
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Allegheny Airlines Flight 736" (page 35306667, revision 1372688872); merged with NTSB case NTSB19681224P023266 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19681224P023266: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19681224P023266
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19681224P023266: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19681224P023266: operated under Part 121: Air carrier (scheduled domestic passg.svc)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19681224P023266: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19681224P023266: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Allegheny Airlines Flight 736" and NTSB case NTSB19681224P023266, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.