American Airlines Flight 2
American Airlines Flight 2 was a Douglas DC-3 that crashed into the Mississippi River on February 10, 1944. All twenty-four passengers and crew were killed. The ultimate cause of the crash remains a mystery.
Flight and aircraft
Flight 2 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight between Little Rock National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas and Memphis Municipal Airport in Memphis, Tennessee. The aircraft was a DC-3-277A manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company and operated by American Airlines. The craft was five years old, having first entered service in 1939, and had accumulated a total of 12,446 hours of flight time at the time of the crash.The plane departed Little Rock National Airport with three crew and twenty-one passengers on board. At 11:36 pm, approximately southwest of Memphis Municipal Airport, the DC-3 descended at an angle of 20 degrees, the right wing slightly low, and struck the Mississippi River. There was no abnormal radio contact prior to the crash. All twenty-four people on the DC-3 were killed.