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At 11:08 on July 31st 1973, a Delta Airlines
DC-9 crashed into the seawall at Logan Airport while attempting to land,
which was just short of the runway. 89 people tragically lost their lives.
The accident remains a memory for many Bostonians
because of the hope at that time someone would survive the crash. There were initially two survivors. One person lived for about two
hours. A second person, with terrible burns and traumatic injuries,
clung to life for four months, and died on December 1st 1973. Many
Bostonians had hoped and prayed for this person to survive. The
passing of the final survivor of Flight 723 was a very somber event. At the time, the accident added to local concerns about the growth in air
traffic. Films such as Airport, Alive, and Skyjack,
convey some of the public uneasiness about air travel in the early 70's.
A huge fog bank enveloped Logan Airport on the day of the
crash. Flight 723 was on an instrument landing approach. The
crew was briefly distracted by an onboard instrument and an air traffic
control instruction, and the plane flew right into the seawall in front of
the runway at Logan. A plane on final approach behind Flight 723,
unaware that Flight 723 had even crashed, aborted the landing due to
weather, and later reported zero visibility at 216 feet. The air
traffic control tower was actually unaware of the accident for several
minutes due to the poor visibility.
The crash was extremely sad. The event may never
have happened if not for an extra second or two, or with very few additional
feet in altitude. Some of the good results of the
Flight 723 crash were recommendations on runway approach lighting
systems, changes to a flight instrument, and a pilot advisory that
electronic landing conditions may not match actual
conditions near a touchdown point.
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