Urbana, OH Jet - Private Plane Crash, Mar 1967

Ohio Air Crash Claims 26.

Radar Heralds Frightening Impact.

URBANA, Ohio (UPI) – A Civil Aeronautics Board spokesman said today the crash of a TransWorld Airlines jet liner apparently was caused by a collision with a private plane.

“It appears to be a mid-air collision,” said EDWARD SLATTERY. Twenty six persons were killed.

The Air Control Center at Dayton said the planes were traveling toward each other at right angles on a collision course.

SLATTERY said it would take about two weeks to determine the precise location of the TWA DC-9 and the twin engined Beechcraft at the time of the collision.

The planes crashed to the ground in flames leaving a two mile trail of broken bodies, bits of wreckage and luggage in the second major air disaster in Ohio this week.

The tragedy occurred about 50 miles south of where 38 persons were killed in a Lake Central Airlines crash Sunday night.

The sky was clear and visibility as at least six miles. Both pilots were veteran flyers. The solution may come from two black boxes – the flight recorder and voice recorder – both recovered intact.

SLATTERY said the voice recorder of the plane crash at Kenton had been analyzed.

“All the messages were routine,” SLATTERY said. “They gave no indication of any trouble. The voice acknowledging Cleveland Air Traffic Control center was perfectly normal. It said absolutely nothing about any trouble.”

The plane crashed in a freezing rain storm. However, SLATTERY said no mention was made of any icing on the wings or trouble of any sort.

“We have clear voices on the ground, then a lot of static during the 14 minutes of flight and then an abrupt cessation of power,” he said.

The plane was piloted by JOHN HORN, 45, Indianapolis, who was the senior pilot in the Lake Central system.

“The power went off because of in[sic] interruption in the electrical circuit,” SLATTERY said. However, he said it was not known at this time exactly what caused this interruption.

The voice recorder from the TWA flight may hold the last words of the pilot and could indicate if he saw the private plane.

Capt. KARL B. KOHLSAAT, 39, of Chicago was at the controls of the DC9, en route from New York to Chicago with stops at Harrisburg, Pa., Pittsburgh and Dayton. KOHLSAAT was a veteran of nearly 10 years service with TWA.

Piloting the Beechcraft was CYRUS BURGHSTAHLER, 54, a Detroit businessman en route to Springfield, Ohio, for a business luncheon.

“BURGHSTAHLER was an experienced pilot,” said DAVID TANN, president of BURGHSTAHLER'S company. “He had logged more than 10,000 hours in the air, many of them on one-day trips such as these. This was his natural mode of travel.”

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