“Salt Lake City, United 718… ah … we’re going in.” This was the last transmission received from United Airlines Flight 718 on the morning of June 30, 1956. The plane collided with TWA Flight 2 over the eastern end of the Grand Canyon, killing all 128 people aboard the two commercial aircraft. It was the greatest air tragedy of its time, and would forever change aviation safety regulations.
Legacy of the 1956 Grand Canyon Air Disaster
12/21/2012 by GCW
Air traffic control in those days was nearly nonexistent. There was no national radar system and pilots flying in uncontrolled airspace operated under the “see and be seen” rule. Mid-air collisions were a major concern and pilots were reporting an average of four near misses a day across the U.S.
On that fateful day in 1956, both planes veered off their scheduled flight paths in order to give passengers a bird’s-eye view of one of the wonders of the world. It is likely that both planes were flying through cloud banks when the collision occurred. Flight 718 severed the tail section of Flight 2, sending the plane into a four mile vertical dive to the canyon floor at the base of Temple Butte. Flight 718 hit at the top of an 800 foot sheer cliff on Chuar Butte.
Due to the remote and rugged terrain of the United Flight 718 impact site near the confluence of the Little Colorado River, much of the debris still remains in the rocky crags of Chuar Butte, and can be spotted from river rafting tours passing by.
The catastrophic Grand Canyon air disaster led to the formation of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1958, which sought to modernize air traffic control and take steps to avoid similar accidents in the future.