Video: 'Documentary - the 1961 U.S. Figure Skating Team & the Sabena Flight 548 air disaster'

(Wednesday, February 15, 1961, 10:05 a.m. Central European Time) — 73 people, including all 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team en route from New York City to Brussels, Belgium, to the World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia, were killed today in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.

Among the dead were reigning U.S. champion Laurence Owen, 16, her mother, nine-time U.S. champion Maribel Vinson Owen, and her sister, pairs champion Maribel Owen, 20.

The precise cause of the Sabena Flight 548 crash remains a mystery; the most likely explanation was thought to be a failure of the tail stabilizer-adjusting mechanism.

This was the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 707 in regular passenger service; it happened 28 months after the 707 airliner was placed into commercial use. It remains the deadliest plane crash ever to occur on Belgian soil.