Eastern Air Lines Flight 898

Eastern Air Lines Flight 898 (flight number: EA898, callsign EASTERN 898) was a US domestic flight from Miami International Airport in Florida to Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina. On 4 December 1971, the Douglas DC-9-31 operating this flight collided on final approach with a private Cessna U206 Super Skywagon. The two occupants of the Cessna were killed in the accident. All other persons involved survived the incident uninjured.

Accident sequence

On this day the DC-9 was operating domestic scheduled flight EA898 from Miami, Florida to Washington, D.C. with intermediate stops in Raleigh, North Carolina and Norfolk, Virginia. At 12:12, a few minutes behind schedule, the aircraft took off from Miami Airport. The first officer was the pilot flying.

At 13:10 the Cessna U206 (N2110F) took off from Raleigh County Memorial Airport with a pilot and one passenger. The short flight to Raleigh-Durham International Airport was to be conducted under visual flight rules. At 13:32:45 the pilot of the aircraft contacted the controller responsible for landing approaches directly, thereby bypassing the approach controller. The passenger on board came from the town of Morrisville, which lay three and a half miles from the end of runway 05, in line with the extended runway centreline. The pilot then asked the controller for clearance to fly over Morrisville at 500 feet before initiating the approach procedure a few minutes later. The clearance was granted.

At 13:42:40 the Cessna pilot reported that he was southwest of the outer marker and requested landing clearance. The controller responsible for landing approaches instructed the crew to approach runway 05 and to report when the aircraft was five kilometres out so that landing clearance could be issued. At 13:44:35 there was a communication between the approach controller and the controller responsible for landing approaches, in which the former informed the latter that the DC-9 was only half a mile from the inner marker and that he had had to delay the aircraft's approach somewhat because of traffic in that area. The controller responsible for landing approaches replied that this was probably the Cessna which had "for some reason" asked to overfly Morrisville. The approach controller pointed out to the controller responsible for landings that both aircraft were flying in the same direction and on the same course.

At 13:40:55 the DC-9 crew contacted the approach controller and received clearance to conduct an ILS approach. The controller then transmitted four messages to the crew in succession, the first two of which concerned the Cessna N2110F in the airport area. The DC-9 crew replied that the light aircraft must be below the clouds and that they intended to descend another thousand feet within the cloud layer. At 13:44:15 the DC-9 crew reported that they now had the runway in sight. This was the point at which to change to the frequency of the controller responsible for landing approaches, whom the pilots contacted at 13:44:30. The DC-9 passed over a VOR, but at a greater altitude than intended. The controller cleared the crew to continue the approach, but warned them that the Cessna had also passed the beacon shortly before. The captain of the Douglas replied that they had probably already overflown the light aircraft. One minute later the crew received landing clearance, but a further 25 seconds later the pilots reported that the underside of their aircraft had collided with another aircraft and that they would therefore abandon the approach for the time being. According to eyewitness reports, the Douglas overflew the Cessna, which was below its fuselage, at a height of about 320 metres, whereupon the landing gear of the DC-9 struck the wing of the Cessna from behind. The light aircraft then became wedged beneath the airliner and initially remained in this position. The occupants of the Cessna initially survived the collision. One minute and 15 seconds after the initial collision, as the Douglas passed over the end of runway 05, the Cessna suddenly separated from the landing gear of the DC-9, fell almost vertically to the ground and exploded. The two occupants were killed. The DC-9, which suffered minor damage to its landing gear and lower fuselage in the events, remained controllable. The pilots landed the aircraft safely at the destination airport one hour and seven minutes after the collision. Of the 27 people on board, no one came to …