Claude Burdick

Airline Crew Member

Claude Burdick was an airline crew member associated with the 1948 Chiles–Whitted encounter, but unlike Clarence Chiles and John B. Whitted, he appears to be a much more lightly documented witness. Your current archive profile identifies him simply as an “Airline Crew Member,” and the surviving readily accessible case summaries do not provide the same depth of biographical information or a detailed formal statement under his name.

His connection to the encounter:

Burdick appears to have been a member of the Eastern Air Lines Flight 576 crew during the July 24, 1948 incident. That is significant because the event is usually summarized around its two cockpit witnesses, Chiles and Whitted, while the aircraft also had other people aboard who potentially observed aspects of the event.