In 1961 a Plane Crash Killed the Entire U.S. Figure Skating Team. Here's How the Tragic Legacy Lives On

Fifty-seven years ago this month, the U.S. figure skating team was devastated by a plane crash. The star-spangled athletes were on their way to compete at the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, where they were expected to score medals and launch into preparations for the 1964 Olympics. When the plane went down in Belgium, all 72 people onboard were killed, including the 18 skating hopefuls. The tragedy was mourned across the nation and shattered the figure skating world, which the U.S. had dominated for over a decade. The legacy of the accident continues to shape the sport to this day through a memorial fund that still supports U.S. skaters, including some of this year’s Olympians, the Washington Post reports.
The Crash

Flight 548 took off from New York on Valentine’s Day, 1961. As TIME wrote in its Feb. 24, 1961 issue:

It was shortly before 10 o’clock next morning when the 707 neared Brussels. Something must have been wrong in the cockpit: for the last 20 minutes of flight, Pilot Louis Lambrechts did not contact Brussels Airport. He made a wheels-down approach, but went round again, possibly because a Caravelle jet was taking off. On his second turn, breasting the flat fields near by at 500 ft., he increased his speed, wrapped the giant 707 into an almost vertical bank. Brussels tower flashed the emergency signal, and fire trucks and ambulances began rolling down the landing strip.

What caused the plane to go down on a clear skies day was never determined. Some investigators blamed faulty stabilizers.


Source: Yahoo News