History: New York Air Disaster, 1960, New York City, United States

Although witnesses speculated at the time that the United crew were attempting an emergency landing in Prospect Park (about 1/2 mile away) or at LaGuardia Airport, there is no evidence that the pilots had control of the DC-8 at any time after the mid-air collision. There was no audible voice radio contact with traffic controllers from either plane after the collision although LaGuardia had begun tracking an incoming fast moving unidentified plane from Preston toward the LaGuardia "Flatbush" outer marker.
The United DC-8 crashed into the Park Slope section of Brooklyn at the intersection of 7th Avenue and Sterling Place, setting fire to ten brownstone apartment buildings, the Pillar of Fire Church, the McCaddin Funeral Home, a Chinese laundry and a delicatessen. Wreckage was scattered over the Seventh Avenue at Sterling Place intersection, killing six people on the ground, including Wallace E. Lewis, the Pillar of Fire Church’s 90-year-old caretaker; Charles Cooper, a sanitation worker who was shoveling snow; Joseph Colacino and John Opperisano, who were selling Christmas trees on the sidewalk; Dr. Jacob L. Crooks, who was out walking his dog; and an employee of a butcher's shop located on Sterling Place.
The death toll on the ground would have been significantly higher if the crash had been a block to the west (St. Augustine High School) or if the crash had occurred several blocks earlier (St. Francis Xavier Grammar School).