Northeast Airlines Flight 285

The flight, which carried freight, mail, and passengers, departed from Boston for Hyannis at 5:50 pm with 21 passengers on board. The aircraft, a Douglas DC-3, departed Hyannis at 6:35 pm for Nantucket. It left Nantucket at 7:30 pm for Martha's Vineyard.[3] The plane missed its first landing approach at Martha's Vineyard due to poor weather conditions, but landed safely on the second approach at 8:07 p.m. All of the original passengers deplaned at these stops. Seven new passengers boarded at Nantucket and fourteen more boarded at Martha's Vineyard. At 8:18 pm, the plane, which was 50 minutes behind schedule, took off from Martha's Vineyard for New Bedford, where one passenger was scheduled to get off. The rest were bound for the flight's final stop at LaGuardia.[3]

Around 8:45 pm, the plane made a normal approach to the field.[3] On its final approach to New Bedford, smashed a 400-foot path through trees and went down about 4,000 feet short of the runway in the Apponegansett Swamp.[1][5]

Both the Civil Aeronautics Board and the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission investigated the crash.[1] The Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission released its report on September 30, 1957. It found the most probable reason for the crash was a "loss of visual reference during the final visual phase of an instrument approach, due to weather conditions." According to the report, at the time of the crash the ceiling at the airport was 200 feet and there was visibility of a half-mile.[6]

The CAB determined that the probable cause of the accident to be premature descent by the pilot in the approach area without adherence to the instrument landing system approach dictated by existing weather conditions in an attempt to make a visual approach. They found that Flight 285 had descended prematurely and to a low and unsafe altitude in an attempt to approach the airport visually. It did not conform to the ILS glide path, flying nearly 189 feet below the glide path centerline and 165 feet to the right of the localizer centerline. A descent occurred which was not recognized by the pilots in time for corrective action, resulted in the plane striking trees and crashing about 4,000 feet short of the runway threshold.[5]

• Final accident report - Civil Aeronautics Board