1960s Timeline

June 3, 1962 - The three small children of Mr. and Mrs. E.M. Bevington have one parent alive today — their father — because their parents made it a policy never to fly together. Their mother, Mrs. Betsy Bevington (right), died today in the crash of an Air France jetliner in Paris. Mrs. Bevington, who had toured with the Atlanta Art Association, had met her husband in Paris last week. Mr. Bevington, manager of an air-conditioning equipment concern, was on a business trip. Both

June 3, 1962 - The destruction of an Air France Boeing 707 jet today at Orly Airport took place in bright sunlight and with barely a cloud in the sky. The jetliner began to roll down the long runway at 12:25 p.m. According to eyewitnesses, the plane gathered runway speed quickly. As it reached the speed at which it should have become airborne, it rose about six feet and then faltered. The jet settled to the runway, and there is evidence in marks on the runway that the pilot t

June 3, 1962 - One hundred thirty persons were killed today when an Air France Boeing 707 jet crashed and burned while taking off for New York from Orly Airport in France. The only survivors were two stewardesses. A steward was found alive in the wreckage, but he died 10 hours later. It was the worst disaster involving a single airplane in the history of aviation. All of the victims except seven crew members and one passenger were Americans, and most of these were from Atlant

May 26, 1962 - An explosion of unknown origin caused a Continental Airlines jetliner to disintegrate in flight and crash in the vicinity of Centerville, Iowa, last Tuesday night, a Civil Aeronautics Board spokesman said today. All 45 persons aboard were killed in the crash. In Denver, Robert F. Six, Continental’s president, asked the F.B.I. to enter the investigation because, he said, the airline had “sufficient evidence to indicate the probability that a man-made explosive h

Mar. 1, 1962 - A collection of about 15 works by the late Arshile Gorky (pictured) were reported this evening to have been lost in the crash this morning of the jet airliner in Jamaica Bay, New York. Works by Gorky, an outstanding abstractionist and controversial figure in the art world, had been destroyed before by fire. On two occasions before he died, his paintings were destroyed in studio fires. Two other fires since his death have destroyed other of his works, including

Mar. 1, 1962 - Ninety-five persons were killed today in a jet airliner crash in Jamaica Bay, New York City. It was the highest toll involving a single commercial airplane in U.S. history. The American Airlines Boeing 707 crashed an hour before the city started a spectacular welcome to Lieut. Col. John H. Glenn Jr. The four-engine aircraft had just taken off for Los Angeles from Idlewild Airport at 10:07 a.m. It was making a turn three miles southwest of the field at Idlewild,

Jan. 25, 1962 - Montana Governor Donald G. Nutter (pictured center) and five persons were missing and presumed dead today in a plane crash. A plane identified as the Governor’s twin-engine C-47 crashed in a canyon near Wolf Creek, about 30 miles north of Helena. At the crash site, Col. Richard Kendall of the Montana National Guard said: “No one could have survived.” The wreckage indicated that the plane had been demolished on impact. Debris was strewn over a wide area of the

Nov. 8, 1961 - A chartered airliner carrying Army recruits to a training camp crashed and burned 10 miles southeast of Richmond, Va., this evening. At least 77 persons were killed. The only survivors were the pilot and the flight engineer, who were hurled clear of the wreckage. The plane had taken off from Newark Airport at 6:22 p.m. with 26 enlistees and inductees from North Jersey. It picked up 31 more at Wilkes-Barre and 17 at Baltimore, and then took off for Fort Jackson,

Sept. 18, 1961 - U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold was killed today with 12 other persons in the crash of a plane carrying him to a meeting with President Tshombe of Katanga Province in the Congo. The bodies of the Secretary General and his staff were found four miles from the Ndola airport in Northern Rhodesia. The Secretary General's plane apparently crashed after it had circled the Ndola airport twice and had been waved in. No one on the scene could offer any explana

Sept. 1, 1961 - A TWA Lockheed Constellation airliner plunged into a cornfield 20 miles west of Chicago today, killing all 78 persons aboard. The crash was the worst single-plane disaster in U.S. commercial aviation history. The plane crashed four minutes after taking off from Chicago's Midway Airport bound for Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Family groups on vacation - one of seven, another of six, another of five - were among the victims. Aviation officials said

July 18, 1961 - Mrs. Angier Biddle Duke (pictured left, holding her daughter Maria-Luisa in 1955), wife of the State Department's Chief of Protocol (center), two other socially prominent women and a pilot were killed today when their chartered plane crashed in residential Jackson Heights, Queens. Their single-engined Beechcraft Bonanza plunged, apparently straight down, into a garden within 20 feet of a two-story house. Six children had been chasing butterflies on a lawn next