A Miami Airlines Curtiss C-46 Commando crashes in Elizabeth, New Jersey, killing all 58 aboard including dancer Doris Ruby.

The Curtiss C-46 Commando is a low-wing, twin-engine aircraft derived from the Curtiss CW-20 pressurized high-altitude airliner design. Early press reports used the name "Condor III" but the Commando name was in use by early 1942 in company publicity. It was used primarily as a cargo aircraft during World War II, with fold-down seating for military transport and some use in delivering paratroops. Mainly deployed by the United States Army Air Forces, it also served the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps, which called it R5C. The C-46 filled similar roles as its Douglas-built counterpart, the C-47 Skytrain, with some 3,200 C-46s produced to approximately 10,200 C-47s.

On December 16, 1951, a Miami Airlines Curtiss C-46 Commando airliner crashed in the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey, shortly after taking off from nearby Newark Airport. All 58 people on board were killed. At the time, it was the second-deadliest aviation accident on US soil, behind Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501.

Elizabeth is a city in and the county seat of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city retained its ranking as the state's fourth-most-populous city behind neighboring Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson, with a population of 137,298, an increase of 12,329 (+9.9%) from the 2010 census count of 124,969, which in turn reflected an increase of 4,401 (3.7%) from the 120,568 counted in the 2000 census.

Doris Ruby was a 24-year-old dancer from Sunnyside, Queens who died in the 1951 Miami Airlines C-46 crash. She was a popular nightclub entertainer.