GRAND CANYON 1956: Two Planes. 30,000 Feet. Zero Survivors

Two airliners left Los Angeles three minutes apart on the morning of June 30, 1956. Ninety minutes later they arrived at the same point in the sky, at the same altitude, over the Grand Canyon. There was no radar watching that airspace, no controller responsible for it, and no rule requiring anyone to look. This is the story of the deadliest commercial aviation disaster in history to that date — and of the law it forced into existence, the one that watches every flight you have ever taken. CHAPTERS 00:00 A Plane Falls Into the Grand Canyon 01:10 128 Dead in America's Empty Sky 02:00 A Nation Flying Without Radar 05:28 Two Airliners Leave Los Angeles 07:30 The Request for Smoother Air 09:00 The "1,000 on Top" Loophole 11:00 Converging Over the Canyon 12:05 Why "See and Be Seen" Failed 15:50 10:31: The Collision 18:44 The Search for Two Missing Airliners 22:10 Four Seconds of Radio Tape 24:50 Reconstructing the Midair Collision 27:20 A System Designed to Fail 30:15 The Radar That Already Existed 32:50 How the Disaster Changed American Skies 35:00 The Invisible Legacy of 1956 38:00 What Unsafe Systems Still Hide Today PRIMARY SOURCES AND FURTHER READING Civil Aeronautics Board. Accident Investigation Report: Trans World Airlines, Inc., Lockheed 1049A, N 6902C, and United Air Lines, Inc., Douglas DC-7, N 6324C, Grand Canyon, Arizona, June 30, 1956. Adopted April 17, 1957. Washington, D.C. [File number to be verified against the CAB docket before publication.] United States Congress. Federal Aviation Act of 1958. Public Law 85-726, 72 Stat. 731. Approved August 23, 1958. United States Congress. Airways Modernization Act of 1957. Public Law 85-133, 71 Stat. 349. Curtis, Edward P. Aviation Facilities Planning: Report to the President. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Aviation Facilities Planning, 1957. [Exact month of submission to be verified.] National Park Service. National Historic Landmark Nomination: 1956 Grand Canyon TWA-United Airliner Accident Site. Designated 2014. U.S. Department of the Interior. [Official designation wording to be verified against the NPS listing.] Nelson, Mike. We Are Going In: The Story of the 1956 Grand Canyon Midair Collision. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012. Federal Aviation Administration. FAA Historical Chronology, 1926–1996. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Transportation. Komons, Nick A. Bonfires to Beacons: Federal Civil Aviation Policy Under the Air Commerce Act, 1926–1938. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978. Preston, Edmund. Troubled Passage: The Federal Aviation Administration During the Nixon-Ford Term, 1973–1977. Washington, D.C.: Federal Aviation Administration, 1987. Rochester, Stuart I. Takeoff at Mid-Century: Federal Civil Aviation Policy in the Eisenhower Years, 1953–1961. Washington, D.C.: Federal Aviation Administration, 1976.