Idlewild in sight — At flight’s end, safety eludes an Italian airliner (Part 1)

Final approach

At the end of a long flight on Saturday afternoon, December 18, 1954, a Douglas DC-6B propeller airliner — a “propliner” — operated by Linee Aeree Italiane (or LAI, popularly known today as Alitalia), was nearing its final destination — Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy Airport) in New York City. The aircraft, regisgtered as I-LINE and flying as LAI Flight 451, had departed Rome’s Ciampino Airport 22 1/2 hours earlier. On board were 10 air crew — pilots, co-pilots, engineers, radio operators, and stewardesses — and 22 passengers.

A map scanned from the Hammonds Family Reference World Atlas, published in 1959 and annotated by the author of this web page, shows the route taken by LAI Flight 451 from Rome to New York City. LAI Flight 451’s flight plan called for stops at Milan and Paris, but fog prevented landings at those cities. The airliner did make scheduled stops for fuel at Shannon, Ireland and Gander, Newfoundland, and took on still more fuel at Boston’s Logan Airport, where nine passengers deplaned, before taking off on the final leg of its journey to Idlewild.

A 1945 postcard pictures Douglas DC-4 airliners, flown by American Overseas Airlines, at Gander Airport, Newfoundland, where they had stopped for fuel. Production of the DC-4, a pre-war development by Douglas Aircraft Company, was taken over by the military when the United States declared war against the Axis after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. A DC-4 was the first large, land-based airliner to cross the Atlantic; the DC-6B flown by LAI was a direct descendant of the DC-4.*[^1] Following the war, civilian airlines purchased scores of surplus DC-4s to serve the rapidly growing commercial aviation market.

Descend and maintain seven thousand feet

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At 11:22 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Flight 451 reported to Idlewild Approach Control that it was crossing over the Mitchell Radio Range Station at 7,000 feet. Approach Control cleared the airliner to enter the Scotland holding pattern,¹ approximately 15 miles miles (24 kilometres) southwest of the airport, from which it was subsequently "laddered down" to the number-one position to approach Idlewild.

The 10 crew and 22 passengers continuing on to New York City were no doubt relieved that their long journey was coming to an end, but it seemed they were in good hands: Linee Aeree Italiane had been flying the Rome-New York route since 1950, at first using war-surplus Douglas C-54s, then DC-6s, and since November, 1953, DC-6Bs. It was a blessing that no one on board Flight 451 could know the fate about to befall them.