Air travel is, statistically, the very safest form of transport but it wasn’t always that way.  Imagine living in Elizabeth, a suburb near New York’s Newark airport in 1951 when, within a period of only 3 months, aircraft began raining from the sky onto your neighborhood.

The crash site of Flight 1678M.

An American Airways Convair CV240.

A National Airways CD6.

The City of Elizabeth today.

Images under Creative Commons licence, US Gov Bureau of Aircraft Accidents, Dagrecco, Jon Proctor, Bill Larkins.