the aircraft exploded. The pilots were able to transmit a final message: "MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY. Clipper 214 out of control. Here we go." Seconds later, the first officer of National Airlines Flight 16, holding higher in the same holding pattern, radioed, "Clipper 214 is going down in flames." The aircraft crashed at 8:59pm in a corn field east of Elkton, Maryland, near the Delaware Turnpike, setting the rain-soaked field on fire. The aircraft was completely destroyed, and all of the occupants were killed. The aircraft was the first Pan Am jet to crash in the five years since the company had introduced their jet fleet. Aftermath A Maryland state trooper who had been patrolling on Route 213 radioed an alert as he drove toward the crash site, east of Elkton near the state line. The trooper was first to arrive at the crash site and later stated, "It wasn’t a large fire. It was several smaller fires. A [portion of] fuselage with about 8 or 10 window frames was about the only large recognizable piece I could see when I pulled up. It was just a debris field. It didn’t resemble an airplane. The engines were buried in the ground from the force of the impact." Firefighters and police officers soon recognized that little could be done other than to extinguish the fires and to begin collecting bodies. The wreckage was engulfed in intense fires that burned for more than four hours. First responders and police from across the county, along with men from the United States Naval Training Center Bainbridge, assisted with the recovery. They patrolled the area with flares and set up searchlights to define the accident scene and to ensure that the debris and human remains were undisturbed by curious spectators. Remains of the victims were brought to the National Guard Armory in Philadelphia, where a temporary morgue was created. Relatives came to the armory, but officials said it would not be possible to visually identify any of the victims. The state medical examiner needed nine days to complete identifications, using fingerprints, dental records, and nearby personal effects. In some cases, the team reconstructed the victims' faces to the extent possible using mannequins. The main impact crater contained most of the aircraft's fuselage, the left inner wing, the left main gear, and the nose gear. Portions of the plane's right wing and fuselage, right main landing gear,