Allegheny Airlines Flight 371
 An Allegheny Airlines Martin 2-0-2, similar to the aircraft involved | |
| Occurrence | |
|---|---|
| Date | December 1, 1959 |
| Summary | Erroneous instrument indication |
| Site | Bald Eagle Mountain South Williamsport, Pennsylvania |
| Aircraft type | Martin 2-0-2 |
| Operator | Allegheny Airlines |
| Registration | N174A |
| Flight origin | Philadelphia International Airport |
| Stopover | Harrisburg-York State Airport |
| 2nd stopover | Williamsport Regional Airport |
| 3rd stopover | Bradford Regional Airport |
| 4th stopover | Port Erie Airport |
| Destination | Cleveland Hopkins International Airport |
| Passengers | 22 |
| Crew | 4 |
| Fatalities | 25 |
| Survivors | 1 |
Allegheny Airlines Flight 371 was a scheduled passenger flight on December 1, 1959, between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Ohio with stops in Pennsylvania at Harrisburg, Williamsport, Bradford, and Erie.
The Martin 2-0-2 operating the flight departed Harrisburg with 26 passengers and crew on board and crashed while maneuvering to land at Williamsport Regional Airport in poor weather. A passenger was the lone survivor. Of the 26 passengers and crew many hailed from Pennsylvania or other Mid-Atlantic states, however there were 2 foreign nationalists on board one from France and the other from Lithuania.
The crash was the first fatal accident in the history of Allegheny Airlines and was the deadliest until the 1969 crash of Allegheny Airlines Flight 853. Also the crash was the largest aviation incident in county history. And was the only deadly incident involving Williamsport Regional Airport until the Merion air disaster in 1991.
Background
Flight 371 was scheduled from Philadelphia to Cleveland with stops at Harrisburg, Williamsport, Bradford, and Erie. Flight 371 departed Philadelphia at 08:15 and proceeded under visual flight rules to Harrisburg where it landed at 08:51 without incident. Flight 371 departed Harrisburg at 09:06 with 22 revenue passengers, 4 crew members and 598 pounds of baggage, mail, and cargo.[citation needed]
Flight
![[icon]](/enwiki/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2018) |
Most of the wreckage was burnt out by a fire which followed the crash. The crash site was located about 1.3 miles (2.1 km) south of Williamsport, Pennsylvania.[1]
Due to the terrain it was hard for authorities from several local fire departments that responded to reach the site; thus, it took would-be rescuers half an hour to reach the crashed aircraft. Following the crash the Bureau of Aviation Safety of the Civil Aeronautics Board sent an investigative team, which was at the crash site by December 2.[citation needed]
Passengers and crew
Passengers
| State/Nation | Number |
|---|---|
| California | 1 |
| France | 1 |
| Lithuania | 1 |
| New York | 1 |
| North Carolina | 1 |
| Ohio | 3 |
| Pennsylvania | 16 |
| South Carolina | 1 |
| Virginia | 1 |
- Lone survivor
Twenty-five people on board were killed, with Louis Matarazzo[3] of Springfield, Pennsylvania, a manager of a Philadelphia sportswear company who was on a business trip, the only survivor. Matarazzo was severely burned in the post-impact fire. Two other passengers initially survived but died before they could be transported.[4][5][6]
Rescue workers needed one and a half hours to lower Matarazzo down from the mountain.[4] Matarazzo died in 1988.[3]
Crew members
There were 4 crew members on board, 3 pilots and a flight attendant. Captain Thomas Ronald Goldsmit had over 12,000 hours and worked for Allegheny for nine years. Co-pilots George Matthew Bowers was occupying the right hand seat and Donald Winston was seated in the jump seat. The lone steward was 28 year-old William Thompson Jr.
Legacy
In May 2014, a Williamsport-area resident, Shane Collins, and his cousin, Mark Avery, re-located the Flight 371 crash site on Bald Eagle Mountain using GPS.[7] Robin Van Auken, an archaeology instructor at Lycoming College and a board member of the Northcentral Chapter 8 of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, led efforts resulting in the state Historical and Museum Commission designating the crash site (about the size of a football field) as an official archaeological site. Recovery of artifacts would be difficult as much of the site is on a 67-degree slope.[7]
In October 2016 a memorial plaque was installed at the crash site.[8]
References
- ^ Aviation Safety Network (Flight Safety Foundation), accessed September 15, 2016
- ^ "Passengers and crew". alleghenyflight371.com. Retrieved October 8, 2017.
- ^ a b Louis J. Matarazzo: Social Security Death Index (SSDI) Death Record, GenealogyBank.com, accessed September 15, 2016
- ^ a b Montoursville, PA Airliner Hits Mountain In Snowstorm, Dec 1959, GenDisasters.com, accessed September 15, 2016
- ^ Allegheny Airlines Flight 371 (N174A), accessed September 15, 2016 Archived June 16, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Plane Passenger Lived Where 25 Others Died, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), p4, December 3, 1959, accessed September 15, 2016
- ^ a b Site of deadly Lycoming County plane crash could be memorialized 55 years later, accessed September 15, 2016
- ^ Beauge, John (October 4, 2016). "Memorial erected to mark site of 1959 Allegheny Airlines crash". Penn Live. PA Media Group. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
