Eastern Air Lines Flight 16B
Douglas DC-3-201E · Structural failure after engine fire
From LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
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
- 17 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- 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-3-201E
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-3
- 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
- NC19970
- Operator
- Eastern Air Lines
- Onboard fatalities
- 17
- Route
- From LaGuardia Airport (LGA)To Boston Logan International Airport (BOS)
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Cheshire, Connecticut, near the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
Eastern Air Lines Flight 16B (flight number: EA 16B, callsign: EASTERN 16B) was a domestic scheduled flight of Eastern Air Lines from New York City to Boston. On 18 January 1946, as a result of engine damage, a fire broke out on the Douglas DC-3-201E operating the flight. The fire led to the separation of the wing through structural weakening. All 17 occupants of the aircraft, which crashed near Cheshire, Connecticut, were killed.
Accident sequence
A little more than half an hour after take-off, a fire broke out in the nacelle of engine No. 1 (left) and spread further and further. After a few minutes the wing structure was so weakened that the wing folded upwards and backwards. Control of the aircraft was lost as a result of the structural failure and the aircraft crashed in a spiral.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The Civil Aeronautics Board took over the investigation into the cause of the accident. The investigators were able to determine that the engine fire had been caused by a defect in a fuel line or its connection.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Eastern-Air-Lines-Flug 16B” (revision 263970204, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Eastern-Air-Lines-Flug 16B
- Article
- Eastern-Air-Lines-Flug 16B
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 263970204 · 2026-02-04 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q138004307
- 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
- de Wikipedia article "Eastern-Air-Lines-Flug 16B" (page 13764709, revision 263970204), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata 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 article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.