United Airlines Flight 409 - Legacy

Legacy

Prior to the loss of United 409, the deadliest scheduled airline accident in U.S. history was the June 1950 disappearance of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 over Lake Michigan, when 58 died. The 66 lives lost on Medicine Bow Peak remained the highest death toll on a scheduled airline flight in the U.S. for less than a year. In June 1956 two airliners, a Super Constellation and a DC-7, collided over the Grand Canyon, killing 128 people. Flight 409's crash, and other crashes and mid-air collisions in the United States that occurred over the next several years, convinced the U.S. Congress to improve airline safety procedures, and to increase civil aviation radar coverage.

It is customary for many airlines to retire a flight number if the flight is involved in a fatal incident, but United currently uses the flight 409 designation today on Los Angeles-Chicago-Buffalo route.

In August 2001 a stone with a bronze memorial plaque was placed just west of the Medicine Bow Libby Flats lookout off of Wyoming Highway 130 (Snowy Range Road), in an area called the Miner's Cabin turnout. The location faces the mountain where the crash occurred.

In the film Beetlejuice, when Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbra (Geena Davis) are in the office (representing the afterlife), a voice on the PA systems announces the arrival of Flight 409 ("Flight 409 is arriving at Gate 3").