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American Flyers Airlines Flight 280/D Lockheed L-188 Electra MSN 1136 N183H Near Ardmore Municipal Airport, Oklahoma 22 April 1966 The
Electra was chartered as a Military Airlift Command contract
flight. The aircraft departed Monterey, CA, enroute to Columbus,
GA, with a fuel stop in Ardmore. The airplane crashed while on
approach, killing 83 people. Only 15 passengers survived.
It was determined that the pilot (the company president) had suffered a
heart attack. A forum has been set up for discussion of this crash.
American Airlines Flight 327 Convair 240 MSN 104 N94247 Near Tulsa, Oklahoma 6 January 1957 Flight
327 was being operated on scheduled service between Providence, RI, and
Tulsa, OK with intermediate stops in Chicago, IL, St. Louis,
Springfield, and Joplin, MO. The flight was delayed 1 hour 40 min
before it departed Chicago due to a faulty fire-warning system.
The aircraft crashed 3.6 miles from the approach end of Tulsa Municipal
Airport's runway 17L during an instrument approach. Of the three
crew and seven passengers, one passenger sustained fatal injuries.
Boeing B-47E Stratojet
53-2091 24 May 1957
The accident aircraft was being
ferried to its home at Davis Monthan AFB, AZ, from IRAN at the Douglas
Modification Center in Tulsa, OK, when instrument conditions were encountered
in western Oklahoma. The Aircraft Commander reported a double failure
of the vertical gyros, and ordered the crew to abandon when the aircraft
became uncontrollable. The aircraft crashed into the north bank of
the Canadian River just east of the US Highway 283 bridge. The copilot,
1LT Robert A. McIsaac, did not survive the ejection.
The aircraft exploded in-flight
while being operated by a civilian crew from the Boeing test base at Wichita,
Kansas. Although most of the crew was able to escape, the pilot,
Ross B. Patrick, and the navigator, John W. McCort, were killed.
Great Salt Plains Bombing Range
DoD began use of the range in
1941, for practice bombing and machine gun strafing. A gunnery range,
landing strip, observation towers, and wooden building structures were
constructed at the site. The site, about 18,000 acres, was relinquished
back to the Department of the Interior in 1948. The site is currently
used as a wildlife refuge and flood plain for the Great Salt Plains reservoir.
In addition to the gunnery and bombing areas, two areas are described as
having the remains of aircraft wreckage. Local residents indicate
that military aircraft may have crashed and sank into the sands at the
Salt Plains.
Douglas DC-2
NC14274 14 January 1936
The aircraft was being operated
by American Airlines as Trip One, from Newark, NJ, to Fort Worth, TX, with
a crew change in Memphis, TN. The airplane was on course from Memphis
to Little Rock, AR, with no indication of abnormality, when it crashed
into a swampy area four miles from the town of Goodwin, AR. There
were no survivors among the 14 passengers and three crew members.
While there was no post-crash fire, a flash bulb from a photographers camera
did ignite gasoline that had spilled. The cause of the crash was
never proven, due in part to the fire and the extensive looting of the
site by local residents. This was the first fatal commercial aircraft
accident in the state of Arkansas, and remains to this date the worst crash.
North American F-51D Mustang
44-84973
After making a simulated bombing
run on the capitol building in Oklahoma City, the B-36 participated in
a simulated intercept mission conducted by the 185th Tactical Reconnaissance
Squadron (Oklahoma ANG). During one pass, the F-51 piloted by 1LT
Fred W. Black collided with the bomber nearly head-on. The B-36 broke
into three main sections, with the nose and tail sections separating from
the center wing section. Lt Black was fatally injured, as were 13
of the seventeen crew aboard the Peacemaker.
We are always interested in hearing from people who have knowledge of these and other Oklahoma/Arkansas crashes. Drop us a line!
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