[1][2] On November 12, 1975, the flight crew initiated a rejected takeoff after accelerating through a large flock of gulls at John F. Kennedy International Airport, resulting in a runway excursion.

[4] The aircraft was a 2-year-old McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30CF registered as N1032F and named "HolidayLiner Freedom" by Overseas National Airways (ONA), its only operator.

Meteorological information indicated that visibility was 15 miles (24 km), wind was blowing at heading 160° at 8 knots (9.2 mph; 15 km/h), with an overcast ceiling of 10,000 feet (3,000 m).

[2][3] As the DC-10 was accelerating on the ground at around 100 knots (120 mph; 190 km/h), a large flock of gulls rose from the runway and clustered directly in front of the aircraft.

Around this time, the pilots realized that the aircraft was not decelerating normally but believed that directional control could be maintained, so they initiated a slight left-hand turn towards Taxiway Z to avoid plowing into a blast fence past the departure end of the runway.

As the aircraft came to rest on Taxiway Z, the captain pulled the fuel shutoff levers and fire handles for the other two engines, but was unable to order an emergency evacuation because the public address microphone had become displaced.

Most of the fire remained confined to the crash area, but pieces of the #3 engine struck a Pan Am tire shop near Runway 13R, damaging a tractor and causing several fuel drums to burn.

[1][3] After an in-depth investigation for 1 year and 1 month, the National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on December 16, 1976.

[citation needed] It was reported that 11 other severe bird strike incidents occurred at John F. Kennedy between July and November 1975.

The FAA mandated to JFK: The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation provided a recommendation to General Electric about bird strike protection to the CF6-6 and CF6-50 series engines stating that the epoxy resin must be replaced with an Aluminium Honeycomb which will reduce the contained damage the critical and fragile engine compressor.

[8][9] On June 15, 1978, a recommendation was also sent to American Safety Inc. that the restraints on the ONA DC-10's involving this and another non-fatal accident in Turkey in 1976 were not sufficient.