I want to mention one thing; you are a class act for the ending. But two Air Force fliers who spent four hours over the scene said because the wreckage was so scattered it seemed to them the plane exploded in the air. I was kind of expecting to hear Spears was somehow involved in JFK's assassination. Though no longer married to Al Taylor, Alice later told reporters they had been amicably divorced, and were still close. Down the rabbit hole I go. For most of its existence the company was headquartered at Miami International Airport, Florida. This all changed two months after the crash, on January 20, 1960, when Robert Vernon Spears was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, in possession of a stolen car--a salmon-pink Plymouth. Associate Procurement Agent. Someone connected to the abortion case? - February 14, 1953, a DC-6 crashed into the Gulf of Mexico off Mobile, AL. He had become financially successful in Texas as a naturopath, even becoming president of the Texas Naturopath Association in 1954. The flight had been on its way from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans. Headwinds of about 15 to 20knots at the filed flight altitude of 14,000feet were forecast. Immediately they concentrated their efforts on this area, eventually retrieving: "nine bodies, a portion of a tenth body, five life rafts, five life vests, and a highly diversified quantity of buoyant debris.". Add hotel. 8840'W. Hudson is an Equal Opportunity Employer of all qualified individuals. A few moments before the departure of Flight967 from Tampa, Taylor purchased a flight insurance policy in the amount of $37,500 from a coin-operated machine at Tampa International Airport making his son the beneficiary and showing his destination as Dallas, Texas. Questions also surround the third man involved in all this--William Turska, the naturopath who Spears went to stay with in the immediate aftermath of the crash. The United States Fish and Wild Life, M/VOREGON, searched for 24hours on December14 and 15, 1959, dragging a 35foot wide net over the botton at a position centered around Lat. [] The fire marks on bodies and on debris were of the type caused exclusively by a flash surface fire, probably both hot and brief, upon impact with the water. Comprehensive flight tracking to enhance your FBO operations and increase sales. It was founded in 1934 as a Florida-based airline. According to the hotel staff, Taylor was talking about boarding a flight to Dallas--the waitress specifically remembered making small talk about Dallas. In compliance with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements, some of these records are no longer in the physical possession of the FBI, eliminating the FBI's capability to re-review and/or re-process this material. Among the 42 names of the dead--there was a passenger named Dr Robert Vernon Spears--a distinguished naturopath from Dallas, Texas. * Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar Track National Aeronautics and Space Administration #967 flight from Houston Ellington to Victoria Rgnl. Two military radar stations had the flight under surveillance. She was an unflappable woman in her late fifties, with a fondness for ostentatious feathered hats, pearl necklaces, and large brooches. The flight's next radio contact was with FAA Pensacola radio at 0031 requesting clearance to New Orleans and reestimating NL1 at 0035. In the investigation of the January 6 crash of a National Airlines DC-6B, agents are inquiring into indications that a lawyer, Mr. Julian Frank, might have blown up the plane killing himself and 33 . The Aviation Safety Network is an exclusive service provided by: National Airlines Flight 967 took off from Tampa (TPA) at 23:32 for a flight to New Orleans (MSY) at FL140. Taylor's body was not among those recovered. This website uses cookies. The agent's attention was drawn elsewhere, however, and he never noticed if the man boarded the flight or not. ", Tampa International Airport, FL (TPA/KTPA), New Orleans International Airport, LA (MSY/KMSY), Accident investigation report completed and information captured, 57 km (35.6 mls) E off Pilottown, LA [Gulf of Mexico] (. Air Methods is the most responsive and reliable provider of critical care transportation solutions. [Some context here: In the 50s, life insurance vending machines were commonplace in airports. At that time the control tower at Moisant reported a ceiling of 1,200 feet with three-fourths of a mile visibility, light fog and rain. This appeared to be bits of upholstery, sound deadening material, and white objects like sponge rubber pillows encased in plastic envelopes. Current weather reports and forecasts showed both destination and alternates to be and to remain above the approved minimums. Don't have an account? Veterans, volunteers sought for Honor Flight It costs a lot to charter a flight that will carry 75 veterans from the Golden Isles to Washington, D.C., for the annual Honor Flight. At the heart of the book is the crash of National Airlines Flight 967, which plunged into the Gulf of Mexico on Nov. 16, 1959. On November 16, 1959, an airplane vanished over the Gulf of Mexico, with 42 people onboard. -, Press J to jump to the feed. He estimates that the white trail took three or four seconds to go "straight down," and that the initial red flash was "almost as big as the sun." James L. Sigman, executive officer of the Coast Guard station at New Orleans, said the plane might have exploded when it struck the water. He said he had persuaded Al Taylor to take the dynamite on the airplane by promising to pay him $10,000 to do it. You can help us keep FlightAware free by allowing ads from FlightAware.com. * C-46 Commando The last radio contact with the flight was at 12:44 AM, when the flight contacted company radio in New Orleans. After he left, he phoned again three times, again asking for Junior. - November 3, 1973, a DC-10 had an uncontained failure of Engine #3, as a result of flight crew experimentation, shrapnel penetrated other engines and fuselage, broke window, 1 seat-belted passenger was forced from the plane and killed. . If the plane had any larger parts recoverable, they might have been able to tell if dynamite was the cause by examining residues or scorch marks. arrow_forward Literature guides Concept explainers Writing guide Popular textbooks Popular high school textbooks Popular Q&A Business Accounting Economics Finance Leadership Management Marketing Operations Management Engineering Bioengineering Chemical Engineering Civil Engineering Computer Engineering Computer Science Electrical Engineering . Join to view profile. "Turska was the one to fear, not Bob, Mrs Spears once said. The Flightpath. She called Spearss wife (who was still grieving at that time) and asked if she had seen or heard from Taylor. I have not yet been back in that direction, but in my few decades of air travel, every flight to Tampa meant a stop in Houston before moving on, and the same can be said for the return flight. 2918.5'N, Long. PROBABLE CAUSE: "Because of the lack of physical evidence, the probable cause of this accident is unknown. Logan alleges "Turska was planning his own exit strategy" before the crash--in September 1959 he had put up his Arizona property for sale: "priced to sell, owner leaving state". Alan C. Logan is among those who dismiss this second story as fiction. https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Aviation_Accident_Report:_National_Airlines_Flight_967&oldid=9238655. Nothing unusual was observed and no other objects were observed in the vicinity of the flight which indicated to the station that any difficulty was being encountered". Thank you for the great write-up. He did not log the incident. A mystery woman told a local Tampa newspaper that she had had a relationship with Taylor shortly before his disappearance, and did not believe he was dead. and Long. D.B. Without an aircraft, this was no easy task. There were no apparent problems with the plane's operating equipment, no apparent discrepancies in the maintenance records, nothing mechanical which could "reasonably be linked to this accident". National Airlines Flight 967 took off from Tampa (TPA) at 23:32 for a flight to New Orleans (MSY) at FL140. With so many tantalizing details about Spears and Taylor, its easy to forget we know next to nothing about this plane crash. To me it just doesnt add up that Spears is going to tell his best friend of many decades, a man with essentially no history of violence, to take on this package like its Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.. Fri, 26 May 23. This matter will be detailed later in this report. NATIONAL AIRLINES, INC., DOUGLAS DC-7B, N4891C Precision Air sales officer Yvonne Baldwin said the route had enormous potential, and will shorten travel times between the two countries which until now were via Nairobi in Kenya. Select the responses you agree with. In fact, it was revealed that Spears was facing charges for performing abortions--which was illegal at the time, and had been set to stand trial on December 3, 1959. Spears had a long history of crime, having been arrested 17 times under 14 different aliases. Sun 4/2. None of these nine persons had been subjected to fire or smoke before death, as demonstrated by low carboxyhemoglobin levels in blood and tissue. I wonder how long it took the police to find out about all these shady characters. Clearly, Dr Spears had not been on that plane. A tragic accident due to some unforeseen mechanical malfunction or even pilot error? In that interview, Turska said he now thought Spears had been lying to hm, and implied Spears's wife was in on the whole scam--accusing her of faking her reaction to seeing him. At 00:55 the aircraft suddenly crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. I've never heard of this and I love aviation mysteries. Police seriously looked into the possibility that Al Taylor may still be alive, even working with Mexican law enforcement to explore the possibility that he had fled south of the border. No seat belt abrasions were found. The FBI then tracked him down through surveillance. Could it be that in spite of this vast, tangled web--this was just another plane crash? And who was he? This is the last known radio contact with Flight967. - May 1, 1961, Antulio Ramirez Ortiz hijacks a National Airlines flight from Miami International Airport to Cuba. Delta Air Lines was scheduled to operate the flight between New Orleans, and its next stop, Dallas, TX, where American Airlines was to take over and operate the same aircraft from Dallas nonstop to Los Angeles. Personally I suspect that Logan has at least partially fallen prey to the charms of Dr Spears--I highly doubt Taylor is living it up in South America--but his questions are interesting ones. This consisted of fragmented bits of upholstery, soundproofing material, cabin linings, scat cushions and backs, metallic parts of seats attached to and buoyed by these cushions and backs, overhead racks and other light items not essential to the structural integrity of the aircraft. The man was a con artist. Early that morning, they spotted something: a small amount of debris, a large oil slick, and several floating bodies. [1], Investigators learned that William Taylor, a fellow felon and longtime criminal accomplice of Spears,[1] had boarded Flight 967 using a ticket made out to "Dr. National Airlines Flight 967, registration N4891C, was a Douglas DC-7B aircraft that disappeared over the Gulf of Mexico en route from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 16, 1959. Franks body was found with injuries significantly different from and much more extensive than the other passengers, injuries which were inconsistent with the type of injury usually incurred in an aircraft accident. Spears said he begrudgingly gave his Flight 967 ticket to Al Taylor, a friend who couldn't face a long drive to Dallas. The main section of the wreckage has never been found despite the efforts of Navy and Coast Guard divers. All 42 on board were presumed killed in the incident. * Douglas DC-6B A Delta Airlines DC-7, similar to the accident aircraft, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, introducing citations to additional sources, Learn how and when to remove this template message, List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft, Robert Spears, 1959 bomb suspect, dies in Dallas, Civil Aeronautics Board Aircraft Accident Report on Flight 967, Clear Lake crash ("The Day the Music Died"), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Airlines_Flight_967&oldid=1123344434, Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-7, Airliner accidents and incidents in the United States, Aviation accidents and incidents in the Atlantic Ocean, Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1959, National Airlines (19341980) accidents and incidents, Unsolved mass murders in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from September 2021, All articles needing additional references, Articles lacking in-text citations from September 2021, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, In-flight explosion (Bombing suspected, but not proven), This page was last edited on 23 November 2022, at 06:57. DC-7 [] Template . The National crew consisted of Captain Frank Eugene Todd, Copilot Dick . National Airlines Flight 967. He also told them that "after he left I found a case of hidden dynamite". The aircraft was airworthy at the time of departure and had an adequate amount of fuel. One passenger, William Taylor, had boarded the flight using a ticket issued to Robert Vernon Spears, a convicted criminal working at the time as a naturopath. Revenue passenger traffic in millions of passenger-miles The first, at Dauphin Island, near Mobile, Alabama, reported that Flight967 continued on flight plan course during the entire time it was under their surveillance. The 9 they found were likely ejected from the plane through a large opening during the deconpression, while the rest were blown to bits. November 16, 1959: National Airlines Flight 967 on a flight from Tampa, Florida to New Orleans crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. Goodness, I'm on the wrong plane!" The company posted $1.027 billion in membership fee income compared to $967 million a year earlier, a $60 million increase, or 6.2%. In the weeks after the crash, the mystery of Flight 967 deepened. If it had been, I doubt there would be much mystery as to what happened. Track planes in real-time on our flight tracker map and get up-to-date flight status & airport information. 2004. This debris included parts of seats, parts of overhead racks, upholstery, items of clothing, parts of leather suitcases, shoes, a pack of cigarettes. Curiously, Al Taylor had recently been reported missing. The aircraft was a DC-7, N4891C, owned by Delta Air Lines and operated by National under an equipment interchange agreement. - January 14, 1951, a DC-4 crashed on landing at Philadelphia Airport with 7 fatalities. But they don't agree on when it occurred. I believe him lost in the crash.". This segment of the flight was completely routine. It may safely be concluded that there was no warning of the disaster. The flight had been on its way from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans. Air Methods. GADSS-compliant global tracking and alerting for airlines and aircraft operators. In 1964, it became the first exclusively jet powered service in the United States . Flight 967 was an interchange flight between three carriers; through plane service from Miami to Los Angeles. The theory arose that Spears, desperate to avoid trial and wanting a fresh start, had tricked Taylor (perhaps through hypnosis)[1] into boarding the aircraft with a piece of luggage containing a bomb; when the aircraft crashed, it would be assumed that Spears was on board. At 0034 the flight reported over NL1 at 0033 at 14,000feet, estimating New Orleans at 0119. . The next morning (November 14), Taylor and Spears were together again--Taylors son Junior saw them drinking and laughing in Spearss hotel room, in a celebratory mood. But in 1957 he was expelled from the organization in a bribery scandal. This map shows the airport of departure and the intended destination of the flight. Low frequency bearings were then taken on Grand Isle, on the New Orleans Range Station, and on the Mobile "H" facility, also from 14,000feet altitude. National Airlines 19341980 "" 19701978 . The Board obtained search assistance from the United States Navy. It was founded in 1934 as a Florida-based airline. Accordingly, the aircraft was flown in a northerly direction for some five to ten miles from the point of spiral-down, whereupon floating debris was seen. Al Taylor asked him to drive the Plymouth to Dallas where they were scheduled to meet up. aviation industry. These charts have been preserved for possible future use. It is perhaps no coincidence that a PR man from National Airlines wrote a book in 1963 accusing Spears of being responsible for the crash. The aircraft was airworthy at the time of departure, the crew was competent, weather conditions were good, and when disaster struck, the flight was very close to being both on course and on schedule. 432 in 1951, 905 in 1955, 1041 in 1960, 2663 in 1965, 2643 in 1970, 3865 in 1975. Divers established that the contact was a sunken ship. In a second interview, however, Turska told a different story. There were nine bodies, a portion of a tenth body, five liferafts, five lifevests, and a highly diversified quantity of buoyant debris entirely from within the cabin and baggage compartments directly below it. To have a definitive answer I would have to do research that I am far too tired for at the moment, but I wanted to relay what little information I could think of before I passed out and forgot to come back and do it. Cooper? The aircraft was a DC-7, N 4891C, owned by Delta Air Lines and operated by National under an equipment interchange agreement. However, there was ample fuel to have proceeded to the flight's planned alternate or to Dallas, the next en route stop. A hypothesis arose that Spears, who had befriended Taylor in prison, tricked Taylor into boarding the flight with a piece of luggage containing a bomb. He was arrested for assault and battery for his wife in 1971. According to this new story, in November 1959 Spears was extremely worried about the upcoming abortion trial in Los Angeles. Intensive sea and air searches resulted in finding ten floating bodies and a small amount of floating debris the following morning. National Airlines Flight967, a DC-7B, N4891C, crashed in the Gulf of Mexico while en route from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans, Louisiana, on .mw-parser-output .nowrap,.mw-parser-output .nowrap a:before,.mw-parser-output .nowrap .selflink:before{white-space:nowrap}November 16, 1959, about 0055c.s.t. All 42 on board were presumed killed in the incident. Logan seems to be a firm defender of Spears. As for the insurance policy taken out by Taylor, Spears said: Taylor was sort of a nut on insurance. History of the flight On Sunday 4 April 2010 at about 0920 Eastern Standard Time1, the pilot arrived at Cambridge Aerodrome near Hobart, Tasmania in preparation for a flight in a Victa Airtourer 115 aircraft, registered VH-MTC (MTC). This dialogue will close in 60 seconds or you can click the exit icon in the top right corner to go back to the flight map immediately. National Airlines Flight 967 of November 15, 1959, was scheduled between Miami, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana, with a stop at Tampa, Florida.