On December 16, 1960, a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 bound for Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York City collided in midair with a TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation descending toward LaGuardia Airport. The Constellation crashed on Miller Field in Staten Island and the DC-8 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, killing all 128 aboard the two aircraft and six people on the ground. The accident was the world's deadliest aviation disaster at the time. It also remains the deadliest accident in the history of United Airlines.

The accident became known as the Park Slope plane crash or the Miller Field crash after the two crash sites. The accident was also the first hull loss and first fatal accident involving a Douglas DC-8.



United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United) is a major U.S. airline headquartered at Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois. United operates a large domestic and international route network spanning cities large and small across the United States and all six inhabited continents.

Measured by fleet size and the number of routes, it is the third-largest airline in the world.

United has eight hubs, with Chicago–O'Hare being its largest in terms of passengers carried and the number of departures. It is a founding member of the Star Alliance, the world's largest airline alliance with a total of 28 member airlines. Regional service is operated by independent carriers under the brand name United Express. The United brand name was established by the amalgamation of several airlines in the late 1920s, the oldest of these being Varney Air Lines, which was founded in 1926 but was taken over by Continental Airlines management in 2010 in what was described as a "merger of equals" and a newly created holding company for the airlines.