A Capital Airlines Douglas DC4
Photo – Jon Proctor - Gallery page
httpswww.jetphotos.comphoto5943873 Photo httpscdn.jetphotos.comfull215546_1220924035.jpg
Pennsylvania Central Airlines (PCA) flight 410,
carrying forty-seven passengers and a crew of three, left Chicago at 1:45 P.
M., EST, on Friday the 13th, 1947. Also known as Capital Airlines, the
four engine Douglas DC-4; named “Capitaliner Baltimore,”[1]
picked up passengers in Cleveland at 4:10 P. M., and in Pittsburgh at 5:08 P.
M., before leaving for the National Airport in Washington D.C. The flight was
scheduled continue to Norfolk Virginia as the last leg of the route. The
aircraft was last heard from when it passed near Martinsburg, W. Va., at 6:13P.M.[2]
The flight was due to arrive in Washington D.C. at 6:35 P. M. but was declared
missing when the pilots failed to respond to repeated radio calls from the
dispatcher. The last message from the plane had been its routine report to
Washington that it had passed just south of Martinsburg at an altitude of 3,000
feet with a 20-minute ETA to Washington. [3]
Late that night, search parties began efforts to
locate the crash site within a three-state area; West Virginia, Virginia and
western Maryland. [4]At
around 4 A.M., a message had been received by the Sherriff’s office which
updated the possible location of the site and narrowed the search to an area
between Hillsboro and Purcellville. At day light, several aircraft joined in
the search but had limited effectiveness due to the bad weather - low clouds,
wind and rain made the effort difficult.
The wreckage was finally located around 8 A.M. by
James Franklin; PCA’s director of maintenance and engineering, who had driven
to Winchester and chartered an air plane to fly the same route as the airliner
but at a lower altitude. There were no signs of life. After landing, Mr.
Franklin then drove as close as possible to the scene. With Mr. Stone and J. H.
Carmichael, executive vice president of the airline, he set out in a jeep from
Hillsboro, Va. At the same time the State Police of Virginia, Maryland and West
Virginia, local law enforcement officials and volunteer firemen formed other
search parties to scour the area on foot and in jeeps and automobiles.[5]
The first two searchers to find the wreckage from
the ground were Steve Stone Jr, and Shaulter Allen. They had proceeded up
trails leading to Wilsons Gap but were shrouded in clouds and rain near the top
of the ridge. The wind arose and momentarily blew the cloud cover away which
revealed a small plane circling an area below them. Stone and Allen then saw the
plane zoom circle and wobble its wings signaling the location of the site. Upon
proceeding down slope, they came into the browned cleared swath cut by the flaming
wreckage and were met by twisted death and destruction.[6]
The crash site was located about 100 yards down the
western slope of the ridge which carries the Appalachian Trail, just inside
West Virginia. The wreckage was a mile and a half from a mountain road but
searchers starting out from the west side of the mountain had to abandon their
jeep and climb through more than four miles of tangled undergrowth in their
attempt to find the site of the crash. In order to reach the site from the
Appalachian Trail to the east, the searchers had to beat their way through
thick brush as well as descend rocky ledges.
The Capital airliner had hit with such force and
burned so fiercely that several of the bodies of the fifty victims were never
identified. The plane slashed a swath through trees and then smashed into a
granite out-cropping known as “Lookout Rock.” It was assumed that it had been
raining heavily when the airliner smashed into the mountain. The immediate area
was burned clear by fire from the broken fuel tanks, but the blaze did not
spread very far across the mountainside, indicating that the trees and brush
were wet. The tail section of the DC-4, was charred but still upright at the
edge of the burnt wreckage. The burned main body of the plane lay ahead of the
tail section, with most of the passengers in or near the wreckage. Scattered
all around were the passenger’s possessions —brief cases, women's handbags,
notebooks, and a few items of clothing, mostly charred. Farther up the
mountainside, the nose of the aircraft; which had been sheared off, was laying
on the ground. Four or five bodies were scattered within one hundred feet
forward of the aircraft, apparently thrown clear of the debris. They were among
the least mutilated and easier to identify than those trapped in the wreckage. [7]
Tail section of Flight 410 at the
crash site
Photo Credit - https://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-douglas-c-54-do-skymaster-lookout-rock-50-killed
Removing the bodies to the morgue was an extremely
difficult task. Access to the site from the West Virginia side started with a
rough road requiring a Jeep, but ended two miles short of the crash. From
there, the first half to three-quarters of a mile was marshland and the rest was
an uphill grind through dense brush, and over ravines, with no trail at all.
The western access was so difficult that the decision was made to remove the
bodies eastward, and transport them to a temporary morgue in Leesburg. In order
to do this, crews had to first carry the bodies 300 or 400 yards up to the top
of the ridge, and then carry them on foot or by horse another two and a half to
three miles down the Appalachian trail. The whole rescue operation was severely
hampered by steady rain that soaked searchers and made the rough footing still
more treacherous. At the end, rescuers were met by Jeeps which transported the
bodies two more miles to the new Red Cross Headquarters at the abandoned school
near Foxes farm, in Hillsboro. The Red Cross Headquarters had first been
established on the west side of the ridge, but was moved to Hillsboro once the
decision was made to remove the victims to the east. The bodies were then loaded
into hearses and ambulances at the old school, then transported to the
temporary morgue at the Union Cemetery in Leesburg, where the FBI worked to identify
the victims. [8]
Once the F.B.I., Red Cross, and Pennsylvania Airline
(Capital), had exhausted every means available to establish the identities of
the victims, health authorities ordered that the remaining bodies be interred
in a mass grave. Of the 50 passengers aboard the plane, 48 were accounted for
and two bodies were believed to have been incinerated. The Common Grave in
Union Cemetery in Leesburg, holds the bodies of eight unidentified dead from
Friday's plane crash. The multidenominational service was conducted by Reverends
and Pastors from four local churches. [9]
Funeral service at the mass grave,
Union Cemetary, Leesburg Va.
Loudoun Times Mirror Photo – Found at gravesite-unknownsshannondale.org
Tomb stone with the names of the six unidentified Flight 410 passengers buried in the mass grave along with names
of the two who were never recovered and presumed incinerated. There are no
other inscriptions on the marker.
Photo – James Fazekas
Civil Aeronautics Board Safety Bureau Accident
Investigation of Flight 410
Captain Horace Stark; the pilot in command of Flight
410, had been engaged in flying operations for 28 years with most of his flight
experience obtained in the northeastern United States. He had been in the employ
of Pennsylvania Central Airlines and its predecessor companies for 14 years and
had accumulated over 14,000 hours of flying time.
At the time of the crash, light rain was falling
west of the Shenandoah Valley increasing to heavy showers closer to the ridge
with low clouds and fog. At 1754; while passing near the Martinsburg reporting
point in West Virginia, the flight received a message from Washington Air- way
Traffic control clearing it to the Herndon Fan Marker to maintain 7,000 feet
until further advised. The flight was also instructed that there would be an
hour delay at Herndon due to weather in that area. The pilots; who had already been flying for
over eight hours and still had another leg to go, instructed the company dispatcher
to request from Airway Traffic Control a clearance to approach Washington in
accordance with contact flight rules on the right side of the west leg of the
Arcola radio range. The intention was to avoid the delay and bypass Herndon by
changing the route to go direct to Washington and descending to a lower
altitude to try to get under the weather.
This was the second time that day that the pilots
had to dodge bad weather. While enroute from Chicago to Cleveland at 7,000
feet, the flight reported that a delay would be necessary because it was
attempting to circumnavigate a thunderstorm in the vicinity of Goshen, Indiana.
They were unable to get around the storm and requested clearance to proceed
under it according to contact flight rules. This request was approved by Chicago
Airway Traffic Control on the condition that Flight 410 was able proceed
according to contact flight rules at an altitude of 2,000 feet. Having received
this amended clearance, Flight 410 continued underneath the thunderstorm and
arrived at Cleveland at 1604, 47 minutes late.
On the flight leg to Washington, the pilots request
for a reroute to avoid the delay, was approved at 1803. The flight received a
message clearing it to the Washington tower and to cross the Arcola radio range
station at or below 2,500 feet and in accordance with contact flight rules. However,
this particular route; named “Red 61,” was newly commissioned but did not have
any minimum altitudes published, therefore, did not take into account the
elevated terrain of the ridge line. In addition, the pilot was never advised
that the clearance was below weather minimums. The clearance authorized the
pilot who was then on instruments, to descent below 2,500 feet or below in
order to make visual contact with the ground and proceed to Washington. The
clearance was faulty and should never have been offered by the controller nor
accepted by the pilot. Understanding this request and the subsequent approval
and instructions from air traffic control, is critical to understanding why
Flight 410 crashed into Lookout Rock, killing all on board.
In 1947, commercial passenger aircraft flew below
10,000 feet because they were not pressurized and equipped with oxygen for the
passengers. In good weather conditions, most navigating was done by using visual
references on the ground or “visual flight rules.” In bad weather with poor
visibility and no ground contact, pilots navigated using their compass,
altitude indicator, airspeed indicator and radio navigation signal. They dialed
in a radio beacon and as they flew closer, the signal strength increased, fly away
and it decreased. Airways were specific routes between two radio beacons which
were mapped and published. In order to keep the aircraft from hitting mountains
or other obstructions, the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) established that
1000 feet above any known obstacles and terrain was the basic minimum altitude
for all flying under instrument conditions on or off any civil airway. Each
airway; however, covered ground and obstacles that varied in height so each
needed a minimum altitude which kept aircraft 1000 feet above those particular
obstacles. The problem was that each airline established their own minimum
altitudes with no uniform procedures. The Army also had their own set of
minimums. This was of particular significance to airway traffic control, for without
established minimums it is impossible accurately to know what flight lanes can
be made available to aircraft. If the minimums vary, the airway traffic
controller must keep these variations in mind in order to avoid issuing an
altitude which would be unacceptable to a pilot.
At 1813 a report was received from the flight, “leaving
3,000 feet." Approximately 6 minutes later the airline dispatch station at
Washington initiated several calls to the flight but, although these
transmissions were continued for several hours, no contact was established. Subsequent
investigation disclosed that the aircraft had struck a ridge in the Blue Ridge
Mountains approximately two miles east of the Shenandoah River on the right
edge of the northwest leg of the Arcola radio range at an elevation of
approximately 1,425 feet. Initial speculation by investigators was that a
faulty altimeter in the aircraft was to blame for the pilots being at such a
low altitude in elevated terrain.
The Civil Aeronautics Board Safety
Bureau Accident Investigation; adopted: November 18, 1947 and leased on
November 19, 1947, determined that the probable cause of this accident was the
action of the pilot in descending below the minimum enroute altitude under
conditions of weather which prevented adequate visual reference to the ground.
A contributing cause was the faulty clearance given by Airway Traffic Control,
tacitly approved by the company dispatcher, and accepted by Flight 410. The
theory of the faulty altimeter was tested but proved false. The aircraft was
equipped with a new model aneroid altimeter that was not affected by the heavy
rain and moisture which the aircraft had encountered.
As a result of this accident, the CAA established
enroute cruising altitudes and initial approach altitudes which were completely
uniform for all air carriers throughout the United States. In addition, on
October 10, 1947, the CAA adopted a special civil air regulation which required
the installation of absolute terrain warning indicators in addition to aneroid
altimeters in all scheduled air carrier aircraft with an effective date of February
15, 1948. [10]
Another significant change to commercial aviation
safety occurred three days after the Flight 410 crash, which was the third
involving a DC 4 in two months. A crash in Maryland on May 30 occurred the day
after a DC-4 (commercial version of the Army's C54) crash at La Guardia Airport
in New York City, in which forty-three lives were lost. On June 15, 1947:
President Harry S Truman appointed a Special Board of Inquiry on Air Safety,
headed by CAA Chairman James M. Landis. The action followed a series of three
DC-4 airline accidents that claimed the unprecedented total of 145 lives
between May 29 and Jun 13, 1947. On Aug 15, Landis suggested that the Civil
Aeronautics Board immediately hold hearings on airline crew complement to
determine whether a flight engineer was required on all four-engine air
transports in scheduled domestic passenger service. Between Oct 6-8, CAB held
such hearings, and as a result, in April, 1948, adopted the so-called
80,000-pound rule. Effective Dec 2, 1948, (subsequently extended to Mar 31,
1949), all airplanes certificated for a maximum takeoff weight of more than
80,000 pounds were required to carry an airman holding a flight engineer's
certificate.[11]
The Human Toll
The pilot, Capt. Horace Stark, age 46, of
Arlington, Va., had been flying commercial planes for twenty-six years. He was
a veteran of more than 14,000 hours in the air and was also recognized as an
inventor of aircraft devices. The co-pilot, R. N. Creekmore, age 28, also of
Arlington, Va., was an Army Air Transport Command flier in World War II. The
third member of the crew was Miss Margaret Walls, age 23, also of Arlington. The
passengers of flight 410 included Dr. Courtney Smith, National Medical Director
of the American Red Cross, and David P. Godwin, National Fire Control Chief of
the United States Forestry Service, both of Washington. Also aboard were two
motion-picture executives, C. E. Peppiatt, a division manager, and Samuel
Gross, a district manager of Twentieth Century-Fox, Philadelphia.
PLANE PASSENGER/CREW LIST
A list of persons aboard an airliner which crashed
in (West) Virginia on a flight from Chicago to Washington, as given out by
Capital Airlines and checked at various boarding points:
Boarded at Pittsburgh and headed for Washington:
CECIL L. EATON, 55, Pittsburgh, chief engineer
American Associated Consultants.
J. M. McINTOSH, JR., 29, former Navy lieutenant,
graduated Pittsburgh University last Wednesday, Pittsburgh.
CHARLES HAZLETT McAFFERTY, 2704 Allison street, Mt.
Rainier, Md.
MISS MARY J. ALTMAN, Uniontown, Pa.
WILLIAM M. WATSON, 34, Wilkinsburg, Pa., manager of
WARREN-EHRET Roofing Co., Philadelphia, home in Gastonia, N. C.
ALBERT J. McCARTHY, 21, Pittsburgh, student in
watch-repairing school, and his wife, MRS. ANNA MARIE McCARTHY, also 21.
MR. and MRS. JOHN R. DEWAR, Ambridge, Pa.
MISS ANNA JANE GOODWIN, Pittsburgh.
PERCY JOHN NESS, Washington, D. C.
N. COX.
_______ FOX.
MISS CRAMER, Wooster, Ohio.MRS. PRICE, Akron, Ohio.
______ TERRY.
CHEVALIER A. LUDLOW, 407 Kansas street, Pittsburg,
Kans.
C. E. PEPPIATT, Philadelphia, eastern division
sales manager for 20th Century Fox films.
SAM GROSS, Philadelphia, area division manager for
20th Century Fox.
WALTER D. HODSON, 77, Chicago, president of HODSON
Corp., Pittsburgh.
Boarded in Pittsburgh and headed for Norfolk:
MISS MARJORIE SOUTHERLAND, possibly of Norfolk, Va.
MRS. MARY BRYAN and 10-months-old baby,
Indianapolis.
MRS. KATHERINE WEBSTER, about 34, Pittsburgh, wife
of LOGAN A. WEBSTER, U. S. probation officer.
MISS MARY SAGUN, 33, Norfolk, Va., Navy Yard
employee.
Boarded in Cleveland and headed for Washington:
DR. COURTNEY SMITH, Silver Spring, Md., national
medical director of the American Red Cross.
_______ GEORGER, Cleveland.
ARTHUR POLLARD, Cleveland.
MISS ROBENA McLEAN, Raleigh, N. C.
MISS DOROTHY ANN HOSFORD, 18, of Cleveland.
MISS MINNIE HARMAN, Brentwood, Md., a Red Cross
worker since 1913.
ALLEN COE, Toledo, Ohio.
I. E. GOLDBERG, Milwaukee, AFL attorney.
Boarded in Cleveland and headed for Norfolk:
EDWARD C. DAOUST, 59, Cleveland attorney and
president of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
DR. and MRS. JOSEPH H. MARKO, newlyweds from
Cleveland.
MISS MARGARET J. SMOLENY, 43, Cleveland, auditor
for the Ohio Sign, Co.
Boarded in Chicago and headed for Washington:
_______ OLERY, Seattle.
MISS D. PETERS, Norfolk, Nebr.
ROBERT K. GARRETSON, Seattle, Wash.
DAVID P. GODWIN, Washington D. C., chief of fire
control U. S. Forest Service.
JULIAN KAUFMAN, 30, Chicago.
MARGARET KUEPPERS, 17, St. Paul.
EDMUND J. STONE, Arlington, Va., Federal Housing
Authority employee.
(HARRY C.) GROGHAN.
Boarded in Chicago and headed for Norfolk:
MISS VAIL, Atlantic Court Apartments, Virginia
Beach, Va.
SAMUEL SIEGEL, 62, Chicago.
HORACE STARK, Washington, pilot.
R. N. CREEKMORE, Washington, co-pilot.
MARGARET WALLS, Washington, hostess.[12]
Thanks to LCFR Battalion Chief, Matt Murphy, for providing information about this crash and for his passion for preserving fire service history in general. His father was a mechanic for Capital airlines and was very familiar with this crash. It was Matt that led us to the mass grave marker in Union Cemetery and who often had valuable historic information to share.
While this post was written by James Fazekas using the footnoted source material, we also have to give credit to the man who saved this hard to find information and shared it with others. Most of this history was compiled by Willis Elbert Nowell Jr., who established an online community forum called Shannondale and Beyond. Shannondale is a community located on the western slope of the Blue Ridge Mountain and along the banks of the Shenandoah River, very near to where Flight 410 crashed. Mr. Nowell; a Vietnam era Navy veteran, gathered information from a web site hosted by former employees of Capital Airlines before it was removed from the web. Using his community forum, Mr. Nowell posted all the information that he had compiled regarding the Flight 410 crash, including a story about a visit to the crash site by four former airline employees. Subsequently, several relatives of the crash victims posted stories of lost loved ones, creating a fitting memorial to those killed in this tragic accident. Sadly, Mr. Nowell passed away on January 3, 2017, after stubbornly losing an 11-year battle with four different cancers. Access to the Shannondale and Beyond community forum is now limited to residents only, so this post may be one of the few places available to read the whole story about the crash.
While this post was written by James Fazekas using the footnoted source material, we also have to give credit to the man who saved this hard to find information and shared it with others. Most of this history was compiled by Willis Elbert Nowell Jr., who established an online community forum called Shannondale and Beyond. Shannondale is a community located on the western slope of the Blue Ridge Mountain and along the banks of the Shenandoah River, very near to where Flight 410 crashed. Mr. Nowell; a Vietnam era Navy veteran, gathered information from a web site hosted by former employees of Capital Airlines before it was removed from the web. Using his community forum, Mr. Nowell posted all the information that he had compiled regarding the Flight 410 crash, including a story about a visit to the crash site by four former airline employees. Subsequently, several relatives of the crash victims posted stories of lost loved ones, creating a fitting memorial to those killed in this tragic accident. Sadly, Mr. Nowell passed away on January 3, 2017, after stubbornly losing an 11-year battle with four different cancers. Access to the Shannondale and Beyond community forum is now limited to residents only, so this post may be one of the few places available to read the whole story about the crash.
Willis Elbert Nowell Jr
Linkedin profile photo
[1] The
Detroit News, June 14, 1947, P.1 Home Edition http://www.rarenewspapers.com
[2] New York Times – 6/14/1947, by phone
Searchers press for hunt in Blue Ridge country for plane from Chicago to
Washington
[3]
Martinsburg Journal-6/14/1947, P.1 Local Officials Called In Hunt For Airliner
[4]
New York Times – 6/14/1947, by phone Searchers press for hunt in Blue Ridge
country for plane from Chicago to Washington
[6] Spirit
of Jefferson Wed. June 18, 1947 http://spj.stparchive.com/ Local people active
During Crash Disaster
[8]
New York Times-6-15-1947 P.1 Grim Scene of Disaster Greets Searching Crews
[9] Capital Airliner Crash
Of 1947 By Willis, Sep 15, 2016 Shannondale & Beyond, Inc. Community Forum
[10] Civil
Aeronautics Board Safety Bureau Accident Investigation - Pennsylvania Central Airlines
Corp., Lookout Rock, West Virginia-June 13, 1947 - https://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-douglas-c-54-do-skymaster-lookout-rock-50-killed
[11] FAA
Historical Chronology, 1926-1996 (PDF) https://www.faa.gov/about/history/chronolog_history/
[12]
New York Times June 14, 1947 Plane Passenger/Crew List Washington, (AP)
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