Ellicott City, MD United Airliner Crashes, Nov 1962

ALL ON BOARD VISCOUNT ARE FOUND DEAD.

UNITED AIRLINER APPARENTLY IN TROUBLE BEFORE CRASH.

WAS EN ROUTE TO NATIONAL AIRPORT.

By Luther Moore
Ellicott City, Md. (AP) -- A United Air Lines Viscount plane plummeted from a bright sunny sky today and crashed in a woods on a farm hear here. All 17 persons aboard were killed.
It was United Flight 297 enroute from Newark, N. J. to Atlanta, Ga. Four Crewmen and 13 passengers were killed, including 10 persons employed by United.
One of the passengers was SPENCER SILVERTHORNE, of New York, president of the Empire State Chamber of Commerce, who was en route to Atlanta to attend a wedding.
The Federal Aviation Agency reported the pilot gave no hint of impending trouble before the plane disappeared from a radar scope. The Viscount was preparing for a landing at Washington's National Airport.
In Radio Contact.
The FAA said radio communications with the craft before the crash were "entirely routine" and that the pilot had acknowledged a routine instruction only three minutes before.
A farmer who arrived on the scene immediately after the crash said the heat was so intense he could not go near it.
"I got in my car right after the crash and drove down to the woods where the plane crashed, but there was nothing I could do," said CLARK GAITHER owner of the farm where the plane crashed.
"I heard the sputtering motor and then there was silence," MRS. GAITHER said. She said she was sitting at the kitchen table having lunch with her husband.
"We waited for the engine to come back on. It never did." She said there was a loud explosion. She rushed to the back door and looked across the rolling farmland of Howard County.
Three Explosions.
"There was a tremendous explosion and a mass of flames," she said. "Then there were two more explosions, not as loud as the first."
THOMAS J. JENKINS, agent in charge of the Baltimore office of the FBI, said he had been asked to send a disaster squad from his office to help identify the bodies.
DR. RUSSELL FISHER, state medical examiner, probed about the smoking wreckage directing state troopers, wearing long white coats in rocovering the bodies burned under pieces of the wreckage.
A volunteer fireman who arrived on the scene only minutes after the crash said, "I only saw one body. It looked something like a body."
Most of the bodies were hidden under pieces of metal. The earth was furrowed in the immediate area of the impact and surprisingly few trees were knocked down by the crash.
Bodies Taken Away.
By 2:45 there were eight bodies covered with white tarpaulins and laid in neat rows.
An hour later, DR. FISHER said: "All right we have enought now to call it 17." Ambulances took the bodies away.
At 3:25 FAA investigators dug the flight recorder from the wreckage. CHRIS WALK, FAA official called back from a vacation, said the mechanism recorded altitude, gravity, speed and other data. It is housed in a metal casing shaped like a ball and capable of sustaining great punishment.
Officals hope to learn some of the causes of the crash from examining the information gathered by the flight recorder.
The crash happened about 12:15 p.m., 10 miles southwest of Baltimore, just off Maryland 108 near Clarksville.
Bodies Under Wreckage.
"It was a horrible thing," said a newsman at the scene. "You wouldn't have believed anybody was there because the bodies were hidden under pieces of somking wreckage."
"The ground looks like it was plowed up, gray with ashes."
Wreckage was strewn over an area 100-150 yards in diameter. The largest piece was about 15 feet long. One engine was intact, but otherwise the wreckage looked like scrap.
Some trees caught fire. Big chunks of the smoking metal lay everywhere in the area. Sometimes, two or three troopers were needed to pull the wreckage off the bodies. Bits of clothing were scattered through the tree branches.
A stack of paper cups used for serving water lay unscorched on the ground. One piece of metal was festooned on a broken tree stump.
Last Rites Administered.
A Roman Catholic priest gave the last rites of the church in case there were any Catholics among the dead. Another priest, who arrived later, said: "There's nothing we can do now."
MR. and MRS. CLARK GAITHER were having lunch when the plane crashed on their farm.
"It was awful," said MRS. GAITHER. "The plane crashed at the edge of the woods and the flames shot higher than the trees."
"We heard a sound like a tractor motor choking. Then there were three thunderous explosions and all we could see was smoke and flames."
W. E. HEBB, who lives nearby, said the plane was so low before the crash he could read the name on its side.
"I stood there and watched it," he said, "and all of a sudden it seemed to go straight down."
Only a few trees in the forest were felled as the plane came down about 100 yards from a cornfield.
Heard Engines Sputtering.
HEBB said the plane appeared to disintegrate as it hit the ground. He said the plane dropped then he heard explosions and saw thick black smoke rising.
MRS. GAITHER said she and her husband first heard a sputtering sound from the airplane engine.
"The next thing we heard," she said, "the motor cut off completely when it came over the house. Then came the explosions."
"Just before the plane crashed .. we thought we heard something like a plane maneuvering. The engines didn't sound right and then they stopped and we heard this noise like a bomb."
GEORGE A. VAN EPPS, chief of safety investigation for the Civil Aeronautics Board, left immediately for the crash scene from New York. In Washington, the CAB said it was sending a team of 10 investigators.
A dozen United Air Lines men, in blue uniforms, were on the scene talking with police and probing the wreckage.
Area Roped Off.
The immediate crash area was roped off and guarded by police to protect it from souvenir hunters and curious onlookers who might trample or disturb vital evidence.
A state trooper said he saw $40 beside one body when he reached the scene a few minutes later the money was gone.
Smoke still poured from the woods hours after the crash, much of it from the long-burning hardwood trees -- mostly oaks -- in the forest.
DR. RUSSELL S. FISHER, Maryland's chief medical examiner, ordered none of the bodies removed from the scene until all were found and pronounced dead by him.
FBI Sending Disaster Squad.
The FBI in Washington said it was sending its disaster squad to the crash scene to try to identify the victims through fingerprints and other means.
The FAA said the crew of the plane had been in radio contact with both the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center just before the crash, and had given no indication of trouble.
Tape recordings showed that at 12:20 p.m., as the plane prepared to approach Washington airport, the plane was "handed off" from route control to approach control, which was to direct the plane in for a landing.
At 12:22 p.m. approach control directed the pilot to take a compass heading of 200 degrees, and the order was acknowleged routinely.
At 12:25 p.m., approach control ordered the compass heading changed to 180 degrees. The pilot did not respond to this order, and about the same time the plane was disappearing from the radar scope monitoring its approach. The plane was not heard from again.
The recordings of the final messages were being prepared for intensive study by CAB experts assigned to investigate the crash.

The Frederick Post Maryland 1962-11-24

Transcriber's note:
The official cause of this disaster was the aircraft penetrated a flock of Swans flying at 6,000 feet. One or more struck the edges of the stabilizers, either breaking or weakening the structure causing it to come apart from the craft. The Viscount lost control and broke apart in mid-air and crashed.
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!