Qualla: Eastern Air Lines Flight 21

Eastern Air Lines Flight 21: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Eddie Rickenbacker's left eyeball was hanging outside its socket when rescuers found him in the wreckage just after dawn. It was February 27, 1941, and the president of Eastern Air Lines -- the most decorated American fighter ace of World War I, a man who had already cheated death more times than most people tempt it -- was pinned in the shattered remains of a Douglas DC-3 in a pine grove southeast of Atlanta. Half of the 16 people aboard were dead, including Maryland Congressman William D. Byron. Rickenbacker had a dented skull, a shattered elbow, crushed hip, twice-broken pelvis, broken knee, and several broken ribs. The crash site lay just five miles from the runway. The cause would come down to something almost absurdly small: an altimeter set wrong by roughly one inch of mercury.

Eastern Air Lines Flight 21: A Routine Night Run

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Flight 21 was a workhorse route, the kind that held together the early American air network. It departed LaGuardia Airport on the evening of February 26, stopped briefly at Washington-Hoover Airport, then pushed south toward Atlanta's Candler Field, with scheduled stops continuin...

Eastern Air Lines Flight 21: Into the Pines

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Flight 21 contacted the Atlanta control tower twice -- first to announce its approach, then to report its position over the Atlanta range station, two miles southeast of the airport. Eastern's company operator suggested a straight-in approach. The crew acknowledged. Then silence....

Eastern Air Lines Flight 21: One Inch of Mercury

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The answer to why Flight 21 crashed lay in a dial on the instrument panel. In 1941, air carrier aircraft carried two altimeters: one set to sea-level pressure for en route flight, and one set to the local airport pressure for instrument approaches. After the crash, the approach a...

Eastern Air Lines Flight 21: The Unkillable Rickenbacker

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Rickenbacker's injuries from Flight 21 would have killed most men. His skull was dented, his left elbow shattered, the nerve in his left hand crushed and paralyzed. Several ribs were broken. His hip socket was crushed, his pelvis fractured in two places, a nerve in his left hip s...

Eastern Air Lines Flight 21: What the Pines Remember

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The crash site in Clayton County, Georgia, is now part of Reynolds Nature Preserve, a quiet expanse of woods and walking trails southeast of what became the busiest airport in the world -- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the descendant of the Candler Field that ...