What went wrong III: The bypass of 3-D radar: It was already beset by technical and economic problems, and then advancing technology sealed its fate

Never before had so great a disaster marred the history of U.S. aviation. Worse yet, it was only the latest in a series of mid-air collisions and near misses that had been occurring with alarming frequency. Two commercial aircraft, a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Constellation, collided in rain and fog over New York. The disaster of mid-December 1960 took the lives of more than a hundred passengers, crew personnel, and residents of the densely populated city as the two planes crashed onto city streets.