TWA Flight 260
Trans World Airlines Martin 4-0-4 · Controlled flight into terrain
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)
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
- 16 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 16
- 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
Martin 4-0-4
- Flight
- TW260
- Aircraft type
- Martin 4
- 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
- N40416
- Operator
- Trans World Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 16
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ)To Santa Fe Municipal Airport (SAF)
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
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
TWA Flight 260 was a scheduled passenger flight by Trans World Airlines (TWA) from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the United States. On February 19, 1955, the 40-passenger Martin 4-0-4 prop plane servicing the route crashed into the Sandia Mountains, killing all 16 passengers and crew members. Its deviation from the normal flight path, initially believed to be the result of pilot error, was revised to "unknown" given that the contribution of other factors could not be definitively ruled out. The crash remains the deadliest aviation incident in New Mexico history.
Accident
On February 19, 1955 at 7:03 am, TWA flight 260 en route from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Santa Fe, New Mexico received an IFR clearance from the Albuquerque tower ("ATC clears TWA 260 for approach at the Santa Fe Airport via Victor 19 climb northbound on the back course of the ILS localizer"). There were no further communications after the aircraft took off at 7:05. It was last seen in a high-speed shallow climb toward the cloud-shrouded Sandia Crest at an estimated altitude of 3,000 feet above ground level.
At 7:13 the flight crashed into the Sandia Mountains killing all 13 passengers and three crew members on board. Authorities were not aware of the crash location until the next morning when a cargo pilot spotted the wreckage. Due to the complex mountainous terrain, several members of the New Mexico Mountain Club, along with Explorer Scouts and Boy Scouts, assisted Airmen and New Mexico State Police in the recovery efforts. This later led to the formation of the Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Council, a volunteer organization still active today. Mountaineers George Boatman and Frank Powers were the first people to reach the crash site.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The initial Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) Accident Investigation Report was released on October 12, 1955. Originally the cause was believed to be that the pilots were "intentionally flying the plane into the mountain". This initial CAB "probable cause" adopted a widespread rumor: it implied a "suicide pact" between the two airline pilots. An amended accident report was released by CAB on August 26, 1957, which deleted the word "intentional".
Captain Larry DeCelles worked cooperatively with the CAB's investigators to understand pilot reports of latent faults in a fluxgate compass that appeared only after extended intervals with turn bank-angle. After these investigations, the CAB issued a third version of the report on June 15, 1960 naming the probable cause as "deviation from the prescribed flight path for reasons unknown" given that malfunction of the fluxgate compass as a contributing factor could not be entirely ruled out.
On May 14 members of the New Mexico Mountain Club who had participated in the initial recovery effort returned to the site to recover and bury any human remains left at the site before the summer climbing season. They collected over 150 pounds of remains and also recovered a Fluxgate compass from the remains of the left wing tip where it had been left by the impact. Because of a design wiring defect both the pilot's and copilot's RMI gauges were driven by the same Fluxgate compass which was the one recovered. For this reason, neither pilot could have known of the erroneous data displayed on his RMI. Although "in order to accept the theory offered, the Board must conclude that both crew members were completely oblivious to all these [countervailing] indications, that their attention was focused entirely on the RMI, and that they did not cross-check any other flight instruments", this evidence convinced the CAB to amend the accident report to include instrument error as a possible contributing factor. The CAB's third version of their Accident Report discussed their willingness to work cooperatively with experts from the airline and the pilots' association toward revising its previous report.
Text from the Wikipedia article “TWA Flight 260” (revision 1362474579, 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: TWA Flight 260
- Article
- TWA Flight 260
- Revision
- 1362474579 · 2026-07-04 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q7672510
- 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 "TWA Flight 260" (page 3794471, revision 1362474579)
- 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
- airline flight number in the infobox
- 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.