Video: 'The Crash of MLB Star Roberto Clemente DC 7 - TakingOff Ep 148'

(New Year’s Eve, Sunday, December 31, 1972, just after 9:23:15 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time; during the 1972 Puerto Rico DC-7 crash) —Roberto Clemente, the 38-year-old star outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and four others were killed tonight when the DC-7 he had chartered and was traveling on to bring relief supplies to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from Isla Verde International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Video: 'MLB remembers the legacy of Roberto Clemente'

As a result of inadequate maintenance, the aircraft’s No. 2 engine failed after takeoff. After initiating a turn to return to the airport, the aircraft eventually descended into or attempted to ditch into, the ocean a mile offshore.

Clemente’s body was never found.

The right fielder played 18 seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After his early death, he was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, becoming both the first Caribbean and the first Latin-American player to be enshrined.