[Scan-DC] 1959 Piedmont Airlines crash near Crozet, Virginia

[b_thom at juno.com]

There is a lengthy and interesting story about a plane crash in 1959 about fifteen miles west of Charlottesville. It goes into radio beacons and flight paths.

COVER- Alone on a mountain: the true story of Flight 349

http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2009/10/08/COVER-flight349-main-H.aspx

....
And then there was potential radio interference. The government found that the navigational radio retrieved from the wreckage appeared to be properly set by the crew for a descent into Charlottesville. But what if the beacons on the ground weren't working?

Although the pilot who guided the Buckeye Pacemaker on its northbound journey to Washington noted no radio problems, ALPA noted "several complaints by pilots" about erratic signals around Charlottesville.

More ominously, Charlottesville's radio beacon wasn't alone on its frequency.

Just three-and-a-half miles from the crash, ALPA investigators parked at the McCormick Gap Overlook on the Skyline Drive and found to their horror that when they tuned their radios to 284 kilocycles, what was supposed to be the Charlottesville frequency, they actually picked up an overriding signal from Hagerstown, Maryland.

The Hagerstown airport had already been granted the dubious right to operate its signal five watts higher than Charlottesville. And when ALPA investigators tracked down the beacon's private owner, Rieger says the man admitted that he occasionally cranked the power up even higher to overcome interference.

The Hagerstown airport had already been granted the dubious right to operate its signal five watts higher than Charlottesville. And when ALPA investigators tracked down the beacon's private owner, Rieger says the man admitted that he occasionally cranked the power up even higher to overcome interference.

"He said, 'I will tell you that to your face," says Rieger, "but if you put me on the stand, I will deny it.'" (Fifty years later, neither Rieger nor a reporter were able to identify the speaker for a response.)

But with the help of a ground crew at the Charlottesville beacon, ALPA pilots ran two test flights to learn what might happen to an inbound flight if the Charlottesville beacon, a pre-transistor array of vacuum tubes, conked out.

ALPA pilots watched, stunned, as in each case, as soon as the Charlottesville beacon powered down, the needle on the Automatic Direction Finder, or ADF, swung around to a "direct bearing" toward Hagerstown.

"In the event either flight had continued to fly and complete a normal ADF approach utilizing the information then displayed in the cockpit," concluded ALPA, "both flights could have expected to crash on Bucks Elbow Mountain within a few feet of where Flight 349 crashed."

The government report contained no mention of Hagerstown.
....


____________________________________________________________
Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFoYaqCyqMjkrk7qRVWK5K0qdqQh9NIvxfXIdXfeGYH7M1RAOiFN2/