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Wilmington Sash & Door Fire Palm Sunday, April 2, 1950 Photos
Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941 Photos
PanAm Flight #214 Elkton Crash On December 8, 1963, Pan American 214, operating as Clipper Tradewind departed Isla Verde International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico at 4:10pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) for a flight to Baltimore's Friendship Airport (now Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, or BWI), where 69 passengers disembarked.

At 8:24 p.m. EST, flight 214 departed for Philadelphia with 73 passengers and 8 crew members on board. Because of high winds in the area, the crew chose to wait in a holding pattern with five other airplanes rather than attempt to land in Philadelphia.

At 8:58 p.m. EST, while in the holding pattern, the aircraft was hit by lightning, which ignited fuel vapors in the No. 1 (left) reserve tank, causing an explosion that blew apart the outer portion of the jetliner's port wing. The crew of flight 214 managed to transmit a final message "Mayday, mayday, mayday ... Clipper 214 out of control ... here we go", before it crashed near Elkton, Maryland. All 81 people on board were killed.

• Audio #1 - Joe Mosbrook, News Reporter with Radio Station WDEL giving an account of the plane crash:
• Audio #2 - Cecil County Control Center, Rosemary Culley dispatches Cecil and New Castle Counties Fire Companies
• News Video - Universal-International Newsreel
• Video 3 - Chief McIntire Remembers Elkton Plane. It was recorded in the autumn of 2013
• Video 4 - Additional information
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News Video
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Mid-Air Explosion Over Willow Run Area April 28, 1955 Photos
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Created: 2/20/2013
Revised: 3/21/2018