June 24, 2026.   Flight 66.

Tragedy double whammy. Caught up in commemorating the downing of Air India flight 182 (see post below), I’d forgotten that the very next day was the anniversary of the crash of Eastern flight 66.

On June 24th, 1975, the Boeing 727 went down while attempting to land at Kennedy Airport, splattering across Rockaway Boulevard at the foot of runway 22L. The crash killed 113 of the 124 passengers and crew.

This was a watershed accident, as it ushered in a more intensive study of windshear — particularly low-level microbursts. The work of a meteorologist named Ted Fajita became instrumental in better understanding the phenomenon.

If you can track down a copy, there’s a riveting account of the flight 66 disaster in James Kaplan’s book, The Airport.