STONY POINT – Fifty years ago, on December 1, 1974, Northwest Orient Airline Flight 6231 disappeared from JFK Airport’s radar somewhere over Harriman State Park. A report from JFK was sent to the police. A boom was heard in nearby communities.
The Boeing 727 was en route from New York City to Buffalo to pick up the Baltimore Colts football team. It had already been diverted earlier in the day after a TWA jet crashed in bad weather on approach to Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C.
There were three crew members on board: Captain John Lagorio, 35, of Edina, Minnesota, First Officer Walter Zadra, 32, of Seattle; and Second Officer James Cox, 33, also of Seattle. All were killed.
A walk to the crash site will take place next month to pay tribute to the victims and commemorate the incident.
It took hours to find the 1974 crash at Harriman State Park
After the warning, in the middle of the night, first responders were instructed to search the vast park for the plane. That included volunteer firefighters from Hillcrest, Thiells and Stony Point.
Gordon Wren, then a Hillcrest volunteer and now retired as a Rockland County fire coordinator, was one of them.
At some point during the night, a Palisades Interstate Park officer discovered the crash site.
Wren said the area was so remote that it took hours for the officer to smell the jet fuel that led him to the location.
Family members of the crew who died in the crash of Northwest Orient Airline Flight 6231 on Dec. 1, 1974, unveil a marker at the crash site in Harriman State Park during a 2015 ceremony.
What happened to flight 6231
According to the National Transportation Safety Board accident report, a crew member broadcast a mayday message ten minutes after takeoff: “We are out of control, we are descending to 20,000 feet.”
According to later recovered flight data, the Boeing 727 crew received erroneous readings from their instruments because a speed indicator had frozen. This caused them to slow the 727 so much that it went into a spin.
The plane fell from an altitude of 7,000 meters to the ground in 83 seconds.
The lessons from the tragedy changed both equipment design and crew training methods.
The pilot’s sons, who were seven and nine years old when their father’s plane crashed, became pilots themselves. They learned about Fight 6231 and the safety measures they learned from the tragedy during their own training.
Ceremony planned to mark the tragedy
A walk to the crash site of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 6231 is planned by Wren and Scott Salotto, who helped install a historical marker at the site in 2015 when he worked for the County of Rockland.
The walk, coordinated by Haverstraw Kings Daughters Library, will take place on December 14.
During the walk, participants learn about the accident site and walk to it.
Wren and Salotto, a certified pilot, are avid hikers. Both will share their knowledge about the event.
Salotto said the pilot’s widow, who now lives in Arizona, and other family and friends of the victims plan to participate.
When: Saturday, December 14 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Where: Meet at St. John’s Church in the Wilderness Church, 119 St. John’s Road, Stony Point. From there the walk is approximately 3 km and suitable for advanced beginner walkers.
Register: Visit the Haverstraw King’s Daughter website, haverstrawlibrary.org, and click on the events calendar for the direct link to the walk registration form.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Victims of Rockland County NY Flight 6231 crash honored 50 years later
