I'm not very sure that this is a cover up, honestly. I feel like this was more so a tragedy caused by the standards of time and some odd behaviors. Since this was the 1960s, I'm convinced that the aviation and ATC standards were beyond different than now. Also, since many rules of aviation are written in blood, I'm sure that it too this disaster, as well as others, to make ATC standards better and also improve aviation safety.
I agree with you. There was a conflict of interest but there’s no evidence it led to anything. ATC were decidedly less professional than today - why do so many people say “S for sugar”? - but to infer that they sent the Cessna into the path of the larger plane isn’t substantiated.
@@moiraatkinson , standard aviation nomenclature. Alpha, Baker, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot - etc. Makes radio transmission clearer. Pilots are well familiar with this and expect it. They know exactly what is said. Aviation has its own language, as does most other industries.
I'm not sure what would be there to cover up. The physical evidence alone already showed the Cessna not being where it should be and the ATC recordings explain how that came to be with or without any gaps. The personal connection to the airline is just a red herring.
We are so blessed that we have advanced avionics now that pretty much make this kind of incident highly improbable if not impossible. I believe the Cessna was probably at fault, but the ATC folks didn't make things clear. Bad communication I guess... No cover-up, just a lethal misunderstanding...IMHO.
I don't think this is an instance of a cover-up. But there are definitely conflicts of interests that would have impacted the final report. Even if there is a cover-up in this instance, there was a huge misunderstanding between the Cessna and ATC.
It's always weird that the sky looks so big but can be so small - not only around airports but at cruising altitude. Truly, all the advances that have been made in avoiding mid air collisions have been paid for in blood.
I don't see a cover up. The Cessna was at the wrong place. Why is a matter of speculation: The pilot might have thought of an another approach, the pilot might have been confused, who knows. The instructions were given by the ATC albeit not as clear as they could have been. This, in my opinion was a tragedy: wrong place at exactly the wrong time, 30 seconds would have probably made it just a near miss. This was the sixties and many small plane pilots had less than enough knowledge and or experience on airport's approach procedures.
Calling this a coverup is absurd. The tower was not clear in its communications. The airport radar was down. The Cessna pilot didn't know where he was. The various position fixes around the AVL airport were confusing. The Piedmont 727 was exactly where it was supposed to be, doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing. The Cessna crashed into the Piedmont B727 just at/below the cockpit. Case closed.
I would have to agree with an unfortunate collision of circumstances. Cessna wasn't where it was supposed to be, the 727 waa where he was supposed to be, and ATC could be seen as making confusing comms. The holes in the cheese lined up. They had to be forced a bit, but they did.
I’m not a flying expert, but I think that the Cessna pilot was probably out of his depth - weather conditions were poor, and he was probably more used to flying VFR. The thought of relying on instruments was probably playing on his mind, and he accidentally flew towards the wrong VOR. Hearing the wrong VOR mentioned by ATC also would have confused him. Poor bloke. The lack of radar at the airport probably didn’t help, because the controller wouldn’t have been able to tell where both planes were. I hope that installation of radar was a good thing that came out of this. It is suspect that the NTSC guy had Piedmont connections and he was probably relieved that the investigation came out in their favour. Whether it was conspiracy or not, I don’t know. I’m just forming an opinion based on the video.
Yeah, from this video it doesnt really smell like a cover-up, tho the investigator being the brother of the Piedmont VP gives a very bad appearance. Even the appearance of bias is enough, and the investigator should automatically have been barred from participated, let alone leading, any investigations involving his brothers company. But again, standards in the 60s were very different.
He passed the VOR (VHF) and then flew towards the wrong BEACON (short wave). He turned west to Broad River beacon instead of northwest towards Asheville Beacon. Maybe he didn't understand how to operate the HF systems as good as the VHF or He though he already passed Asheville by not realizing that there is Asheville VOR and then a separate Asheville BEACON. Also he should have double checked his heading when he was cleared to land runway 16 (from the north, which means going via Asheville BEACON) while he was approaching runway 34 via Broad River.
@@hewhohasnoidentity4377 I said the exact same thing to my wife when we watched this. "He's not going to out climb a 727". I guess just panic, not thinking.
Nowadays when you check in with approach controller.. They'll give you the runway you can expect and the approach type. Looks like back then they didn't do it. But the fault lies with the Cessna pilot for making assumptions and not listening carefully. But that's how aviation safety is improved.. From accidents and mistakes.
You left out an important part, flight 22 was instructed to fly runway heading (straight), and climb to 5000 ft before making a left turn, 22 started turning left before reaching 5000 ft, so even if the Cessna was mistaken, and in the wrong place, if flight 22 had followed directions, the collision would have never happened!! also, during that time the CVR recorded the pilots talking about the ashtray fire, and trying to put it out, when their full attention should have been looking out the window. fyi, I was 7 years old at the time, and I was there, my father and I were driving on hwy 26 when they crashed, we slowly drove through the debris on the highway, and I literally could have reached out the passenger window and touched one of the seats lying in the middle of the road, I'll never forget it. ALSO, I remember that day just like it was yesterday, it was NOT as cloudy as you're making it out to be, it was hot and sunny, there may have been a few clouds around but nothing like your video is portraying!
Kevin, this is so inaccurate. The Cessna pilot kept saying he did not know where he was at and was still asking for more directions when the two planes collided. I heard the tape. Yes, there was definitely a cover up. I don't think either pilot was to blame. The blame lies on the tower.
I never heard that! My wife has this thing about airline crashes and stumbled across this a few minutes ago!! When they dedicated the memorial in Hendersonville, N.C., My whole family was there and the people of Hendersonville as well!. That’s the first time we heard their stories and they kept talking about seeing bodies and body parts, “and that smell” that they could not describe!! They said it was Jet Fuel and something else. I pray that their souls may find peace!!
You know what is weird? My mom saw this plane trash. She told me this years ago. I thought she was just making it up. Then I checked and saw that a plane did crash in Hendersonville North Carolina where my mom was born.
I was a Piedmont flight attendant hired in 1982. At the time, Piedmont had a small crew base in ROA. Those were some of the best years of my 41 year flying career.
Conspiracy theories are always attractive and in many cases potentially lucrative. Reporting your bearing to the ATC, particularly in an IFR environment, is a very unusual practice, to say the least. On the other hand, the alleged fire in the Boeing cockpit should have been irrelevant had the Cessna been at least near its expected position.
The fire is irrelevant because the B 727 did what they were told to do, although I read somewhere they deviated from their runway heading on climb out early on by a small bit. Which of course would have made the difference. However there was no warning for them. One was flying and one was going through checklist, they were in a climbing attitude, there were clouds, they were basically told by ATC to go. So it's not normal to bend forward and twist your head sideways in a critical phase of the flight because there might be something there that by all means should never be there
I cannot imagine there was any cover up except as it pertains to air traffic control which possibly created confusion in the mind of the Cessna pilot. In the end, the Cessna ventured into restricted airspace. The pilots of the 727 had no reason to worry about a small plane crossing their landing approach. This is eerily similar to the mid air collision of a small aircraft and a PSA airliner over Orange county in California. May God rest the souls of all who perished in both accidents.
Many other problems. Normally someone who believes in one conspiracy theory believes in several. Perhaps even dozens. conspiracy theorist are mentally ill.
yet like every other anti-conspiracies guy, you won't provide any detailed examples of what you pretend. It's like with mainstream medias, it's all based on trusting what you say is true
This occured in 1967, 55 years ago. The human brain doesn't work well at understanding complex situations from distant times. A 75 year old person can not describe a situation to a 20 year old person well enough for the 20 year old to fully understand the dynamics of the roles everyone has. My point is that even with the complete record of the time to work with, we do not have the ability to comprehend the full situation and determine the cause any better than the people who were involved at the time. This should be viewed as a historic set of facts to learn about and understand.
This accident reminded me of the greatest accident in my country’s history, Gol flight 1907 and Excel air, tail number N600XL. In fact, it was a Midair collision over the amazon, interestingly enough, with the same facts the CENIPA (Brazil’s equivalent of the NTSB) and the NTSB came with very different conclusions. It was a brazilian plane going out of the factory in a ferry flight with an american crew and the gol’s boeing was an american brand new plane with a brazilian crew, i guess the plane was only 2 weeks old. The only thing they agreed was that the gol crew didn’t do anything wrong. Very interesting set of circumstances that happened for that terrible ending, going all the way from human factors to different legislations (usa uses faa and brazil icao)
I doubt anyone was trying to cover up anything. Mind reading should not be a part of ATC or piloting. ATC gets stuck in routine. Pilots can be mysterious. If subject to interpretation, always ask to "Confirm?" What else can you do? It must have been a case of many aligned Swiss cheese holes.
Approach should not make last minute changes especially if Cessna not familiar with airport. Approach could have kept the 727 a couple minutes longer on the runway until Cessna clarified where he really was vs just roger. Pilots aways need o repeat back instructions.
I don't see a conspiracy of any sort. Flying back then was a lot different than now. Having to listen to ATC give clearances, repeating them back, and the type of instrumentation we had made for a very busy pilot. I see three potential problems here. 1) The Controller did not make clear the change in the clearance from one beacon to another beacon, 2) the pilot did not repeat the clearance as he heard it, 3) the pilot did not ask for a clarification of the clearance. It maybe that the pilot did not have the required IFR training as it appears that he did not notice the change in the Controllers approach direction. Faced with these conflicting thought processes he should have questioned the Controller, or followed the Controller's instructions and immediately questioned why the diversion from the expected approach. There is enough blame here to spread it around a bit.
I was 10 years old when this happened and live in a neighboring county. Some of my family members were doing agricultural work in the area and claimed they heard the explosion. The 727 crashed very close to I-26 at lunch time, in plain view of the cars passing on the Interstate. There are archival photos on line showing it. The story was told locally that civilians wandered onto the crash site from the freeway before the first responders could arrive to take control of the area. It is also said that some of them may have taken items and, disturbed crash evidence.
@Mini Air Crash Investigation For your audience's benefit, it's pronounced "Roe-Ann-Oak" not "Roe-No-Ko." Some locals (I have relatives that live there) will half swallow the middle syllable making it almost sound like "Roan-Oak" if they are saying it fast.
Was about to write the same thing. I'm surprised nobody picked up the Cessna 310 he's using for the vid is a Beech Duchess (310's don't have a T tail).
That the first investigation by the newly formed NTSB has some "irregularities" isn't surprising, they hadn't really established their procedures for investigation yet. That two aircraft were allowed to come into conflict while under air traffic control is alarming, but it's understandable given the circumstances. And there is no one claiming the 727 was in the wrong place, it's clear it was the Cessna. Ultimately, the outcome of the investigation led to identifying the likely cause of the incident and most importantly, presented lessons to learn to prevent future incidents. No cover-up just some allegations that aren't supported by facts.
I've been fascinated with this accident for many years, and I have never seen nor heard of any information on this crash which would cause to me contemplate a cover-up of any type by any person, persons or agencies. No rumors... I have often wondered, however, about the physiological and mental state of the 310 pilot - a commercial pilot - that would have caused him to err so egregiously. Or, was he just not paying enough attention? May have even been expectation bias... Who knows? No one.
My dad, a Naval Aviator, was aboard flight 22 as was the Secretary of the Navy. They lost their lives that day over Hendersonville, N.C. My family changed that day forever more!! Looking back, I feel for the people in Hendersonville that day, because of the atrocities that rained down upon them that day! I felt a deep loss over the loss of my dad, obviously, but I never had to see body parts in twisted steel and Jet Fuel! I never saw anything, but a Flag draped casket! God Bless the people of Hendersonville, N.C.!!
I think this was probably (unintentionally) the funniest video of yours i've ever watched. From your mis-pronunciation of Roanoke to saying, "Knife through hot butter"... and that double negative "Neither plane had no chance".... 🤣 i had lots of giggles out of this one, Thank you for that.
@@colinpotter7764 in the Aeromexico Flight 498 incident one was under air traffic control and the other was apparently not noticed. maybe a similar thing happened here?
I live a few miles from Hendersonville in Brevard and I went over there a couple of days after this crash, and it was ghastly! A friend of mine was driving nearby and saw a female passenger hit the highway median. A coworker of my dad's said his wife was in the living room ironing clothes when a passenger of the doomed flight impacted their home; he eventually had to commit her to a mental hospital. God bless the memories of those who died, and their families and friends.
The crash site of Flight 22 was in a wooded youth campsite area less than a hundred yards from I-26. The Outback Steakhouse that is there today just off the interstate is near ground zero.
The Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727-200 was named "Manhattan Pacemaker". I live in Hendersonville and it is still possible to see where this jet airliner crashed nearly 60 years later.
I remember this crash. I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C., C Co. 503rd MP Bn. A company (B Co.) from our battalion was sent to Hendersonville to secure the crash site. I remember reading that a high school gym was used as a morgue.
i witness the entire thing standing in my yard. small plane was looking for Hendersonville airport and was turning back. Ses. dove and 2 close and the jets sucked into the engine. the planes were spread more than amount her. Standing in my yard watching i had to run to avoid the debre and people coming down. there were people on big plane, that had come to pick up kids from camp. It was and accident. and I WILL NEVER FORGET. It was a clear day 100% visible . had just come in from field below headed to house at noon. ai can not project thing.
Much ado about nothing. The NTSB was a relatively new agency and were still in there teething stage. As such the investigations for the first few years were obviously not as thorough and educated as they were still learning.
I wasn't hearing readbacks. So I went to the report: Although a clearance readback is not mandatory, a request to this effect by the controller may have served to clear up any uncertainty in the mind of the pilot with regard to the instructions, and perhaps may have alerted the controller that they were not clearly understood. In this regard, it is noted that on the day before the accident (July 18, 1967) the FAA issued a GENCT to ATC facilities which read, in part: ". . , as good operating practice, controllers may request clearance readback whenever the complexity of the clearance or any other factors indicate a need."
A friend of mine was killed by a train, because of a faulty signal, AND the front window frmaing on his left side, and his speedm and the trains speed...Same principal. A perfect disaster. I miss you Rob.
I really enjoy your videos! Please correct me if I'm wrong but I noticed some mistakes in the aircraft simulator exterior shots of this and other videos. The Piedmont B727 involved in the accident was a 100 series not a 200 series. I also believe this to be the wrong livery Piedmont was sporting a different paint livery in the 1960's. The livery seen in this video is from the 70's and 80's. The other video was the Eastern DC9 non sterile cockpit approach landing crash in Charlotte where the pilots were taking about used cars and politics. The mistake in that video was the bare metal fuselage. I believe the Eastern DC9 that was involved in the crash was the white whisperjet livery. Eastern Airlines didn't start using the bare metal fuselage of this livery until 1977.
Just flipped past this for a second time, if that livery on the piedmont aircraft is correct it may have been part of the problem. Coming from the front the white above silver below would have reduced the visual signature of the aircraft in the hazy conditions. Maybe not enough to change the outcome, still if the Cessna pilot was not looking for something on that axis, maybe it made enough of a difference.
I say cover up because the TWA 841 pilot that erased the recorder after the barrel roll and nose dive over Michigan were accused of being suspicious for erasing the tape. Also the TWA800 had some gaps in the recording as well as the search and rescue videos . Anything with gaps or missing footage is because something is being hidden for example sounds of missiles hitting the plane.
When you put in the comment about you lining up on the wrong runway in the sim, I pulled up the airport diagram. RW 17/35 is 8001 feet long... lol... just round that off!
This happened in my hometown. if Ever on I-26 east look right past Hendersonville exit. Headed West before the exit look left behind outback steakhouse. The 727 crashed and is Buried behind the restaurant. Small pcs still wash up from heavy rains to this day 56 years later .
Just heard you say (around 4 minutes) "like a knife through hot butter". Surely you meant "like a hot knife through butter", but the reversal was amusing.
What would a cover-up cover up? It could only be hiding some serious mistakes by the 727 - and whatever else the 727 did, it was not the one in the wrong place.
Although I tend to agree, I guess at the very least, having the brother lead the investigation into a major incident involving the airline of which his sibling was a senior executive, is not a good look under any circumstances. In the same way surgeons don't operate on their relatives, it does seem rather obvious that he should have recused himself and a different chief investigator drafted in to create this particular report...
I was in high school when this accident happened. I flew on Piedmont later on when I joined the Army. Piedmont was a quality run airline when I flew with them. My opinion only.
Seen the wreckage of this crash from interstate 26 going towards Asheville. Probably Hours after collision. Clean up had been going on. Black nose cone of plane sticking up on road bank. Rows of seats and luggage on bank. I was shocked years later. In 1994 as a truck driver. I traveled to Charlotte Douglas Airport, five nights a week, for an air freight company. I left Airport Friday/Saturday morning around 12.30 am. I generally went in and out back way to Airport on Wallace Neel road. I went home, and twenty hours later Flight 1016 crashed on Wallace Neel road.
A Cessna and a 727 have ahead at least two mid air collisions in 11 years once in 1967 and in 1978. Both being in the U.S. One in collision is a climb and one in a decent
I don't think the NTSB tried to cover up anything. Since it was the first accident they investigated, I would say that there were things unfamiliar to them that later experience would enable them to clearly define things. What is said is that this was the first case that I am aware of in a series of mid air collisions involving airliners and small craft. 1967 this crash...82 fatalaties. 12 years later in 1978 in San Diego another mid-air collision... 144 dead. Then 9 years later in 1986, inCerritos, CA another airliner and small plane collided. Another 83 dead. It should not have taken 309 deaths spread over 20 years to expedite the ILS and radar systems. The one common denominator in all three crashes is that it appears the small plane was not where it should have been. Windscreens on aircraft should be designed for better visibility. Rest in peace still to all those 309 people that lost their lives.
considering i've grown up in Asheville my whole life and i'm at the Airport every Thursday for my C.A.P. meetings since 2007 when i first started as a cadet, i've only heard about this story once, and even then details had been very vague even from the people who had known about it fully or where there at the time.
Sounds like a misunderstanding by the Cessna pilot of his somewhat strange clearance was the culprit. As the survivor of a near miss, as many pilots are, I can say that 10 seconds is about what I had to see and avoid traffic. Once the other airplane materialized out of the haze in front of me, I immediately initiated a 30 degree bank turn to the right. About 10 seconds later the other airplane passed a couple hundred feet to my left, having never altered his flight path. I was getting close to landing, and I never told the controllers. I figured the best thing was just to get safely on the ground at that point and not stir up conflicts at approach.
I just looked on a recent Google map and found a memorial site. If that is somewhere near impact zone then the Blue Ridge Mall and surrounding area would have been a crash site. If that wreck happened today and the above is true, hundreds on the ground may have been injured or killed. I'm wondering what four seasons Blvd in Hendo looked like back then pre crash.
It is my opinion that the cessna not confirming and following the instructions of ATC, despite traffic control correcting flight navigation instructions, is the sole reason for this collision. Aircraft position was the only reference ATC had at the time to govern aircraft traffic.
There were definitely sketchy air crash investigation reports in the history of commercial aviation that border on conspiratorial. This isn’t one of them, in my book
Question how would one look in to a fatal airplane crash from Feb. 3 1962 in an Ohio cornfield? My uncle Clarence Burleson was one of the 2 fatalities. I've tried to look for ntsb files but it wasn't brought into existence until '67. So I hit a wall. My family has always had unanswered questions about what happened. He was an experienced pilot teaching someone else how to fly. Interestingly we are from the area around Asheville. Which is what lead me to this video.
Good video. But lol at 00:54, that '310' looks like a Seminole with an Apache fuselage and Twin Comanche engines. As a Piper driver, I couldn't help but laugh.
In any midair involving a general aviation craft and an airliner it is likely to be the little plane that is in the wrong place. This one seems pretty simple. The poor guy in the Cessna was probably fixated on flying the normal ILS approach.
Even if all of the irregularities are true, it doesn't appear to actually change the cause of the accident, all it potentially does it show how the 727 pilots really would never have seen the other plane and maybe the ATC could potentially have done something more
seems like the Cessna was at fault. the controller told him he was cleared to the Asheville Radio Beacon (ARB). Yes, he initially said Broad River, but he corrected himself and he repeated himself for clarity. After that radio transmission, the Cessna pilot should have either gone towards the ARB or asked for clarification from the controller.
Oh, I thought it was about an Italian crash, Piemonte (Piedmont in English) is an Italian region and back in 1949 a Fiat G.212 with Turin football team on board (Turin being the capital of that region) crashed in a mountain and killed all of them.
Piedmont means foot hills. Named because that's where the airline was born (Winston-Salem, NC) by Mr. Thomas Henry Davis, always known as Tom Davis, an extraordinary man dear loved by Piedmont employees.
I'm not very sure that this is a cover up, honestly. I feel like this was more so a tragedy caused by the standards of time and some odd behaviors. Since this was the 1960s, I'm convinced that the aviation and ATC standards were beyond different than now. Also, since many rules of aviation are written in blood, I'm sure that it too this disaster, as well as others, to make ATC standards better and also improve aviation safety.
I agree with you. There was a conflict of interest but there’s no evidence it led to anything. ATC were decidedly less professional than today - why do so many people say “S for sugar”? - but to infer that they sent the Cessna into the path of the larger plane isn’t substantiated.
@@moiraatkinson because Sierra is stupid. Its not even an english word...
Well thought out answer and probably as good as any answer we'll ever get.
"I'm sure that it too this disaster"
@@moiraatkinson , standard aviation nomenclature. Alpha, Baker, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot - etc. Makes radio transmission clearer. Pilots are well familiar with this and expect it. They know exactly what is said. Aviation has its own language, as does most other industries.
I'm not sure what would be there to cover up. The physical evidence alone already showed the Cessna not being where it should be and the ATC recordings explain how that came to be with or without any gaps. The personal connection to the airline is just a red herring.
secretary of defense McNamara was in the 727....
@@Jeanettesboxingchannel irony.
@@Jeanettesboxingchannel It was an advisor to McNamara on board. NcNamara died in 2009 of old age.
@@cdbtheclaw ah ok..
@@Jeanettesboxingchannel John T McNaughton was also on this flight along with his wife and son.
We are so blessed that we have advanced avionics now that pretty much make this kind of incident highly improbable if not impossible. I believe the Cessna was probably at fault, but the ATC folks didn't make things clear.
Bad communication I guess...
No cover-up, just a lethal misunderstanding...IMHO.
This was the crash which led to Piedmont being one of the very first airlines to install and utilise TCAS.
This feels more like a final report that could have been more complete, rather than an outright coverup.
I don't think this is an instance of a cover-up. But there are definitely conflicts of interests that would have impacted the final report. Even if there is a cover-up in this instance, there was a huge misunderstanding between the Cessna and ATC.
love how you bring light to all these incidents 👏props to you keep up the great videos
Certainly a tragedy, definitely some irregularities, though it doesn't feel like a coverup. Another great video.
There was a conflict of interest for sure, but doesn't seem like theres anything to cover up anyway
It's always weird that the sky looks so big but can be so small - not only around airports but at cruising altitude. Truly, all the advances that have been made in avoiding mid air collisions have been paid for in blood.
I don't see a cover up. The Cessna was at the wrong place. Why is a matter of speculation: The pilot might have thought of an another approach, the pilot might have been confused, who knows. The instructions were given by the ATC albeit not as clear as they could have been. This, in my opinion was a tragedy: wrong place at exactly the wrong time, 30 seconds would have probably made it just a near miss. This was the sixties and many small plane pilots had less than enough knowledge and or experience on airport's approach procedures.
Calling this a coverup is absurd. The tower was not clear in its communications. The airport radar was down. The Cessna pilot didn't know where he was. The various position fixes around the AVL airport were confusing. The Piedmont 727 was exactly where it was supposed to be, doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing. The Cessna crashed into the Piedmont B727 just at/below the cockpit. Case closed.
I would have to agree with an unfortunate collision of circumstances. Cessna wasn't where it was supposed to be, the 727 waa where he was supposed to be, and ATC could be seen as making confusing comms. The holes in the cheese lined up. They had to be forced a bit, but they did.
I’m not a flying expert, but I think that the Cessna pilot was probably out of his depth - weather conditions were poor, and he was probably more used to flying VFR. The thought of relying on instruments was probably playing on his mind, and he accidentally flew towards the wrong VOR. Hearing the wrong VOR mentioned by ATC also would have confused him. Poor bloke. The lack of radar at the airport probably didn’t help, because the controller wouldn’t have been able to tell where both planes were. I hope that installation of radar was a good thing that came out of this. It is suspect that the NTSC guy had Piedmont connections and he was probably relieved that the investigation came out in their favour. Whether it was conspiracy or not, I don’t know. I’m just forming an opinion based on the video.
Yeah, from this video it doesnt really smell like a cover-up, tho the investigator being the brother of the Piedmont VP gives a very bad appearance. Even the appearance of bias is enough, and the investigator should automatically have been barred from participated, let alone leading, any investigations involving his brothers company. But again, standards in the 60s were very different.
He passed the VOR (VHF) and then flew towards the wrong BEACON (short wave). He turned west to Broad River beacon instead of northwest towards Asheville Beacon. Maybe he didn't understand how to operate the HF systems as good as the VHF or He though he already passed Asheville by not realizing that there is Asheville VOR and then a separate Asheville BEACON. Also he should have double checked his heading when he was cleared to land runway 16 (from the north, which means going via Asheville BEACON) while he was approaching runway 34 via Broad River.
It's just wild that a "cockpit ashtray" used to be a normal thing
Remember: A dive is always faster than a climb.
I agree. That the Cessna tried to climb to avoid the jet is crazy. The jet was climbing, A Cessna small twin isn't going to our climb a trip jet.
@@hewhohasnoidentity4377 I said the exact same thing to my wife when we watched this. "He's not going to out climb a 727". I guess just panic, not thinking.
Nowadays when you check in with approach controller.. They'll give you the runway you can expect and the approach type. Looks like back then they didn't do it. But the fault lies with the Cessna pilot for making assumptions and not listening carefully. But that's how aviation safety is improved.. From accidents and mistakes.
Thankfully, the majority of these incidents lead to changes to make things safer. Not many are in vain.
You left out an important part, flight 22 was instructed to fly runway heading (straight), and climb to 5000 ft before making a left turn, 22 started turning left before reaching 5000 ft, so even if the Cessna was mistaken, and in the wrong place, if flight 22 had followed directions, the collision would have never happened!! also, during that time the CVR recorded the pilots talking about the ashtray fire, and trying to put it out, when their full attention should have been looking out the window. fyi, I was 7 years old at the time, and I was there, my father and I were driving on hwy 26 when they crashed, we slowly drove through the debris on the highway, and I literally could have reached out the passenger window and touched one of the seats lying in the middle of the road, I'll never forget it.
ALSO, I remember that day just like it was yesterday, it was NOT as cloudy as you're making it out to be, it was hot and sunny, there may have been a few clouds around but nothing like your video is portraying!
Over 50 years later people in my hometown of Hendersonville, NC are still haunted by the images of these two plane colliding and the aftermath.
Kevin, this is so inaccurate. The Cessna pilot kept saying he did not know where he was at and was still asking for more directions when the two planes collided. I heard the tape. Yes, there was definitely a cover up. I don't think either pilot was to blame. The blame lies on the tower.
I never heard that! My wife has this thing about airline crashes and stumbled across this a few minutes ago!! When they dedicated the memorial in Hendersonville, N.C., My whole family was there and the people of Hendersonville as well!. That’s the first time we heard their stories and they kept talking about seeing bodies and body parts, “and that smell” that they could not describe!! They said it was Jet Fuel and something else. I pray that their souls may find peace!!
@@shirleyplutowski…what else do you know about that day, Miss Shirley!?
You know what is weird? My mom saw this plane trash. She told me this years ago. I thought she was just making it up. Then I checked and saw that a plane did crash in Hendersonville North Carolina where my mom was born.
Love the new video, keep them coming in . Ever think of doing more military mishaps ?
yeah definitely
Thank you for covering this crash. My father was living in Asheville at the time of the crash.
Not sure there was any cover up BUT I can't act like I didn't hear, "like a knife through hot butter."
Ah, not just me, then.
Could you imagine scheduled service from Asheville to Roanoke? Today you’d probably need to go to Atlanta, Chicago or Newark first.
I was a Piedmont flight attendant hired in 1982. At the time, Piedmont had a small crew base in ROA. Those were some of the best years of my 41 year flying career.
PI 022 operated as an ATL-AVL-ROA-DCA service.
A lot of airlines had these multi-short-hop-flights even with 727s and earlier even with 707s
Conspiracy theories are always attractive and in many cases potentially lucrative. Reporting your bearing to the ATC, particularly in an IFR environment, is a very unusual practice, to say the least. On the other hand, the alleged fire in the Boeing cockpit should have been irrelevant had the Cessna been at least near its expected position.
The fire is irrelevant because the B 727 did what they were told to do, although I read somewhere they deviated from their runway heading on climb out early on by a small bit. Which of course would have made the difference. However there was no warning for them. One was flying and one was going through checklist, they were in a climbing attitude, there were clouds, they were basically told by ATC to go. So it's not normal to bend forward and twist your head sideways in a critical phase of the flight because there might be something there that by all means should never be there
Great video! Always look forward to watching these. Keep up the good work!
I cannot imagine there was any cover up except as it pertains to air traffic control which possibly created confusion in the mind of the Cessna pilot. In the end, the Cessna ventured into restricted airspace. The pilots of the 727 had no reason to worry about a small plane crossing their landing approach. This is eerily similar to the mid air collision of a small aircraft and a PSA airliner over Orange county in California. May God rest the souls of all who perished in both accidents.
The problem with conspiracies is that most of them are formed by people connecting dots that make a compelling picture, but have no real relation.
Many other problems. Normally someone who believes in one conspiracy theory believes in several. Perhaps even dozens. conspiracy theorist are mentally ill.
Well stated.
yet like every other anti-conspiracies guy, you won't provide any detailed examples of what you pretend. It's like with mainstream medias, it's all based on trusting what you say is true
@@AlexH4774 what exactly makes you think that i need to see a psychiatrist?
Are you speaking generally about conspiracy theories or this situation specifically?
This occured in 1967, 55 years ago. The human brain doesn't work well at understanding complex situations from distant times. A 75 year old person can not describe a situation to a 20 year old person well enough for the 20 year old to fully understand the dynamics of the roles everyone has.
My point is that even with the complete record of the time to work with, we do not have the ability to comprehend the full situation and determine the cause any better than the people who were involved at the time. This should be viewed as a historic set of facts to learn about and understand.
This accident reminded me of the greatest accident in my country’s history, Gol flight 1907 and Excel air, tail number N600XL. In fact, it was a Midair collision over the amazon, interestingly enough, with the same facts the CENIPA (Brazil’s equivalent of the NTSB) and the NTSB came with very different conclusions. It was a brazilian plane going out of the factory in a ferry flight with an american crew and the gol’s boeing was an american brand new plane with a brazilian crew, i guess the plane was only 2 weeks old. The only thing they agreed was that the gol crew didn’t do anything wrong. Very interesting set of circumstances that happened for that terrible ending, going all the way from human factors to different legislations (usa uses faa and brazil icao)
I doubt anyone was trying to cover up anything. Mind reading should not be a part of ATC or piloting. ATC gets stuck in routine. Pilots can be mysterious. If subject to interpretation, always ask to "Confirm?" What else can you do? It must have been a case of many aligned Swiss cheese holes.
My Dad was on the Piedmont Jet... This video is so surreal for me...
My father was also on this plane .
Approach should not make last minute changes especially if Cessna not familiar with airport. Approach could have kept the 727 a couple minutes longer on the runway until Cessna clarified where he really was vs just roger. Pilots aways need o repeat back instructions.
I have an aviation program at my school, and the teacher said this on the first day: "To assume is to make an @$$ out of you and me."
I don't see a conspiracy of any sort. Flying back then was a lot different than now. Having to listen to ATC give clearances, repeating them back, and the type of instrumentation we had made for a very busy pilot. I see three potential problems here. 1) The Controller did not make clear the change in the clearance from one beacon to another beacon, 2) the pilot did not repeat the clearance as he heard it, 3) the pilot did not ask for a clarification of the clearance. It maybe that the pilot did not have the required IFR training as it appears that he did not notice the change in the Controllers approach direction. Faced with these conflicting thought processes he should have questioned the Controller, or followed the Controller's instructions and immediately questioned why the diversion from the expected approach. There is enough blame here to spread it around a bit.
I was 10 years old when this happened and live in a neighboring county. Some of my family members were doing agricultural work in the area and claimed they heard the explosion. The 727 crashed very close to I-26 at lunch time, in plain view of the cars passing on the Interstate. There are archival photos on line showing it. The story was told locally that civilians wandered onto the crash site from the freeway before the first responders could arrive to take control of the area. It is also said that some of them may have taken items and, disturbed crash evidence.
Just FYI, Roanoke is pronounced "row on oak".
I was wondering where is Rowenho... lol
...or just Row'noke, as I learned when I was based there. Loved it back then.
@Mini Air Crash Investigation For your audience's benefit, it's pronounced "Roe-Ann-Oak" not "Roe-No-Ko." Some locals (I have relatives that live there) will half swallow the middle syllable making it almost sound like "Roan-Oak" if they are saying it fast.
Was about to write the same thing. I'm surprised nobody picked up the Cessna 310 he's using for the vid is a Beech Duchess (310's don't have a T tail).
Piedmont Air, Piedmont air. Fasten your seatbelt and piss your pants it's Piedmont Air.
That the first investigation by the newly formed NTSB has some "irregularities" isn't surprising, they hadn't really established their procedures for investigation yet.
That two aircraft were allowed to come into conflict while under air traffic control is alarming, but it's understandable given the circumstances.
And there is no one claiming the 727 was in the wrong place, it's clear it was the Cessna.
Ultimately, the outcome of the investigation led to identifying the likely cause of the incident and most importantly, presented lessons to learn to prevent future incidents.
No cover-up just some allegations that aren't supported by facts.
Tell Dan Gryder. That'll make it an NTSB cover up for sure.
I've been fascinated with this accident for many years, and I have never seen nor heard of any information on this crash which would cause to me contemplate a cover-up of any type by any person, persons or agencies. No rumors... I have often wondered, however, about the physiological and mental state of the 310 pilot - a commercial pilot - that would have caused him to err so egregiously. Or, was he just not paying enough attention? May have even been expectation bias... Who knows? No one.
My dad, a Naval Aviator, was aboard flight 22 as was the Secretary of the Navy. They lost their lives that day over Hendersonville, N.C. My family changed that day forever more!! Looking back, I feel for the people in Hendersonville that day, because of the atrocities that rained down upon them that day! I felt a deep loss over the loss of my dad, obviously, but I never had to see body parts in twisted steel and Jet Fuel! I never saw anything, but a Flag draped casket! God Bless the people of Hendersonville, N.C.!!
I think this was probably (unintentionally) the funniest video of yours i've ever watched. From your mis-pronunciation of Roanoke to saying, "Knife through hot butter"... and that double negative "Neither plane had no chance".... 🤣 i had lots of giggles out of this one, Thank you for that.
ha! missed the knife through hot butter :D
To say that that saying was incorrectly said is an understatement.
@@rglrts, yeah, a few flubs. But I'll tell ya, anyone who speaks more than one language pretty well is ahead of most of us 'mericans.
There were mid airs at Uberlingen and Zagreb and neither of them were caused by the aircraft being in the wrong place, there are probably more.
the one at quiberon bay was caused by one being at the wrong place
@@potato1907 neither aircraft were under air traffic control so couldn't be in the wrong place.
@@colinpotter7764 in the Aeromexico Flight 498 incident one was under air traffic control and the other was apparently not noticed. maybe a similar thing happened here?
however the JAL incident was with 2 planes that had routes that intersected and also had shitty air traffic control
@@potato1907 but not all mid air collisions are caused by an aircraft being in the wrong place.
I live a few miles from Hendersonville in Brevard and I went over there a couple of days after this crash, and it was ghastly! A friend of mine was driving nearby and saw a female passenger hit the highway median. A coworker of my dad's said his wife was in the living room ironing clothes when a passenger of the doomed flight impacted their home; he eventually had to commit her to a mental hospital. God bless the memories of those who died, and their families and friends.
The crash site of Flight 22 was in a wooded youth campsite area less than a hundred yards from I-26. The Outback Steakhouse that is there today just off the interstate is near ground zero.
The 727 in the thumbnail was the plane DB Cooper hijacked after it was sold to Piedmont in 1978
Although his "name' was actually Dan Cooper.
Yes. It was Piedmont's maintenance people who figured out the solution so that the aft stairs could not be opened in flight. (PAI06897 1964-1994)
Another great video on a not so well-known incident keep it up!
Thanks for the upload! I always watch your videos during my lunch break haha
The Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727-200 was named "Manhattan Pacemaker". I live in Hendersonville and it is still possible to see where this jet airliner crashed nearly 60 years later.
I remember this crash. I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C., C Co. 503rd MP Bn. A company (B Co.) from our battalion was sent to Hendersonville to secure the crash site. I remember reading that a high school gym was used as a morgue.
I used to live where this took place at
Would you believe me if I said I've heard the cockpit voice recorder of Flight 22?
i witness the entire thing standing in my yard. small plane was looking for Hendersonville airport and was turning back. Ses. dove and 2 close and the jets sucked into the engine. the planes were spread more than amount her. Standing in my yard watching i had to run to avoid the debre and people coming down. there were people on big plane, that had come to pick up kids from camp. It was and accident. and I WILL NEVER FORGET. It was a clear day 100% visible . had just come in from field below headed to house at noon. ai can not project thing.
Much ado about nothing. The NTSB was a relatively new agency and were still in there teething stage. As such the investigations for the first few years were obviously not as thorough and educated as they were still learning.
Nice one! Good documentary, love it so much 👍
I wasn't hearing readbacks. So I went to the report: Although a clearance readback is not mandatory, a request to this effect by the controller may have served to clear up any uncertainty in the mind of the pilot with regard to the instructions, and perhaps may have alerted the controller that they were not clearly understood. In this regard, it is noted that on the day before the accident (July 18, 1967) the FAA issued a GENCT to ATC facilities which read, in part: ". . , as good operating practice, controllers may request clearance readback whenever the complexity of the clearance or any other factors indicate a need."
A friend of mine was killed by a train, because of a faulty signal, AND the front window frmaing on his left side, and his speedm and the trains speed...Same principal. A perfect disaster. I miss you Rob.
I really enjoy your videos!
Please correct me if I'm wrong but I noticed some mistakes in the aircraft simulator exterior shots of this and other videos.
The Piedmont B727 involved in the accident was a 100 series not a 200 series.
I also believe this to be the wrong livery
Piedmont was sporting a different paint livery in the 1960's.
The livery seen in this video is from the 70's and 80's.
The other video was the Eastern DC9 non sterile cockpit approach landing crash in Charlotte where the pilots were taking about used cars and politics.
The mistake in that video was the bare metal fuselage.
I believe the Eastern DC9 that was involved in the crash was the white whisperjet livery.
Eastern Airlines didn't start using the bare metal fuselage of this livery until 1977.
Just flipped past this for a second time, if that livery on the piedmont aircraft is correct it may have been part of the problem. Coming from the front the white above silver below would have reduced the visual signature of the aircraft in the hazy conditions. Maybe not enough to change the outcome, still if the Cessna pilot was not looking for something on that axis, maybe it made enough of a difference.
Oh dear lord.... Really??
I say cover up because the TWA 841 pilot that erased the recorder after the barrel roll and nose dive over Michigan were accused of being suspicious for erasing the tape. Also the TWA800 had some gaps in the recording as well as the search and rescue videos . Anything with gaps or missing footage is because something is being hidden for example sounds of missiles hitting the plane.
When you put in the comment about you lining up on the wrong runway in the sim, I pulled up the airport diagram. RW 17/35 is 8001 feet long... lol... just round that off!
This happened in my hometown. if Ever on I-26 east look right past Hendersonville exit. Headed West before the exit look left behind outback steakhouse. The 727 crashed and is Buried behind the restaurant. Small pcs still wash up from heavy rains to this day 56 years later .
The 1960s were something else for air travel
Back when hijacking’s weren’t terminal.
Just heard you say (around 4 minutes) "like a knife through hot butter". Surely you meant "like a hot knife through butter", but the reversal was amusing.
How do you vector aircraft with out radar ???????????????????????????????/////
What would a cover-up cover up?
It could only be hiding some serious mistakes by the 727 - and whatever else the 727 did, it was not the one in the wrong place.
Although I tend to agree, I guess at the very least, having the brother lead the investigation into a major incident involving the airline of which his sibling was a senior executive, is not a good look under any circumstances. In the same way surgeons don't operate on their relatives, it does seem rather obvious that he should have recused himself and a different chief investigator drafted in to create this particular report...
I’m going with the original conclusion. Cessna pilot error. If this happened today, I’d buy the coverup.
“This video will be titled something along the lines of ‘did the NTSB cover up the cause of this plane crash’”
…
I:
I was in high school when this accident happened. I flew on Piedmont later on when I joined the Army. Piedmont was a quality run airline when I flew with them. My opinion only.
Seen the wreckage of this crash from interstate 26 going towards Asheville. Probably Hours after collision. Clean up had been going on. Black nose cone of plane sticking up on road bank. Rows of seats and luggage on bank. I was shocked years later. In 1994 as a truck driver. I traveled to Charlotte Douglas Airport, five nights a week, for an air freight company. I left Airport Friday/Saturday morning around 12.30 am. I generally went in and out back way to Airport on Wallace Neel road. I went home, and twenty hours later Flight 1016 crashed on Wallace Neel road.
Watching this 1967 collision after watching a 1969 collision (Allegheny Airlines Flight 853).
Roanoke is pronounced phoenetically, someone told you wrong. Also, both planes had no chance of flying, not neither.
A Cessna and a 727 have ahead at least two mid air collisions in 11 years once in 1967 and in 1978. Both being in the U.S. One in collision is a climb and one in a decent
I don't think the NTSB tried to cover up anything. Since it was the first accident they investigated, I would say that there were things unfamiliar to them that later experience would enable them to clearly define things. What is said is that this was the first case that I am aware of in a series of mid air collisions involving airliners and small craft. 1967 this crash...82 fatalaties. 12 years later in 1978 in San Diego another mid-air collision... 144 dead. Then 9 years later in 1986, inCerritos, CA another airliner and small plane collided. Another 83 dead. It should not have taken 309 deaths spread over 20 years to expedite the ILS and radar systems. The one common denominator in all three crashes is that it appears the small plane was not where it should have been. Windscreens on aircraft should be designed for better visibility. Rest in peace still to all those 309 people that lost their lives.
One of your best! So well done. 🌟🌟🌟
Nice , I’m ready for this videon
Hope you like it!
considering i've grown up in Asheville my whole life and i'm at the Airport every Thursday for my C.A.P. meetings since 2007 when i first started as a cadet, i've only heard about this story once, and even then details had been very vague even from the people who had known about it fully or where there at the time.
Sounds like a misunderstanding by the Cessna pilot of his somewhat strange clearance was the culprit. As the survivor of a near miss, as many pilots are, I can say that 10 seconds is about what I had to see and avoid traffic. Once the other airplane materialized out of the haze in front of me, I immediately initiated a 30 degree bank turn to the right. About 10 seconds later the other airplane passed a couple hundred feet to my left, having never altered his flight path. I was getting close to landing, and I never told the controllers. I figured the best thing was just to get safely on the ground at that point and not stir up conflicts at approach.
Great job as always 🏆
I just looked on a recent Google map and found a memorial site. If that is somewhere near impact zone then the Blue Ridge Mall and surrounding area would have been a crash site. If that wreck happened today and the above is true, hundreds on the ground may have been injured or killed. I'm wondering what four seasons Blvd in Hendo looked like back then pre crash.
It is my opinion that the cessna not confirming and following the instructions of ATC, despite traffic control correcting flight navigation instructions, is the sole reason for this collision. Aircraft position was the only reference ATC had at the time to govern aircraft traffic.
since when did a 310 come witha T-tail
... That's got a lot of moving parts.
There were definitely sketchy air crash investigation reports in the history of commercial aviation that border on conspiratorial. This isn’t one of them, in my book
Can you do a video of the A400M crash 2015 in Seville? I like your videos are always great posts 😄
Question how would one look in to a fatal airplane crash from Feb. 3 1962 in an Ohio cornfield? My uncle Clarence Burleson was one of the 2 fatalities. I've tried to look for ntsb files but it wasn't brought into existence until '67. So I hit a wall. My family has always had unanswered questions about what happened. He was an experienced pilot teaching someone else how to fly. Interestingly we are from the area around Asheville. Which is what lead me to this video.
Good video. But lol at 00:54, that '310' looks like a Seminole with an Apache fuselage and Twin Comanche engines.
As a Piper driver, I couldn't help but laugh.
In any midair involving a general aviation craft and an airliner it is likely to be the little plane that is in the wrong place. This one seems pretty simple. The poor guy in the Cessna was probably fixated on flying the normal ILS approach.
Even if all of the irregularities are true, it doesn't appear to actually change the cause of the accident, all it potentially does it show how the 727 pilots really would never have seen the other plane and maybe the ATC could potentially have done something more
seems like the Cessna was at fault. the controller told him he was cleared to the Asheville Radio Beacon (ARB). Yes, he initially said Broad River, but he corrected himself and he repeated himself for clarity. After that radio transmission, the Cessna pilot should have either gone towards the ARB or asked for clarification from the controller.
Oh, I thought it was about an Italian crash, Piemonte (Piedmont in English) is an Italian region and back in 1949 a Fiat G.212 with Turin football team on board (Turin being the capital of that region) crashed in a mountain and killed all of them.
No
Piedmont means foot hills. Named because that's where the airline was born (Winston-Salem, NC) by Mr. Thomas Henry Davis, always known as Tom Davis, an extraordinary man dear loved by Piedmont employees.
At 10:27 it says lined up with decommissioned runway,
Is that just the sim you use ?
I'd agree with the NTSB instead of this "professional"
4:13
"neither plane had NO chance of.."
should be
'neither plane had any chance of...'
just a tip.
cheers
thank you!
Yeah, I don't know 🤷🏼♂️ why the Cessna was in the wrong place.
Misunderstanding seems like part of it.
Rip to all the people that died
this crash happened directly over my summer camp i go to and is the background behind the scary story made up here "peg leg"
Cessna probably got his radio beacons mixed up. Does the accident report indicate what the radios were tuned to?
I have questions about the misleading name of the airline
What's an ADF approach? Did you mean an NDB approach? NDB is the beacon itself and ADF is the instrument onboard used to locate the NDB.
To my ear, the ATC instructions regarding the Beacon were confusing.