Bonanza Air Lines Flight 114
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Bonanza Air Lines Flight 114 was a Fairchild F-27 turboprop airliner flying out of Phoenix, Arizona, to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, on the evening of November 15, 1964.[1]
At 8:25 p.m., during a landing approach in poor weather conditions, it crashed into the top of a hill in open desert country about Script error: No such module "convert". SSW of Las Vegas. All 29 aboard—26 passengers and a crew of three—died instantly when the plane exploded on impact, no more than 10 feet (3 m) below a ridge crest.[2] Although this was not the only incident involving a Bonanza Air Lines airplane, it is the only crash with fatalities during the airline's 23-year history.[3]
Media reports initially stated that 28 had died,[4] but these were corrected when the body of a very young girl was found amid the debris.[5] The rugged terrain and snowdrifts surrounding the crash site initially prevented ground vehicles from reaching the wreckage, so four helicopters assisted in the recovery efforts.[5] Eventually a narrow, unimproved road one mile long that climbs up a ridge and terminates at the hilltop crash site was built to assist in salvage operations; it can still be seen in current aerial photos.[6]
Pilot Henry "Hank" Fitzpatrick, a veteran with over 11,000 hours experience, was initially blamed for flying too low due to misreading the approach chart for McCarran International, but an investigation years later showed that the chart was marked in a non-standard, and possibly confusing, manner.[2][7] Some heirs of the crash victims sued the publisher of the chart, but before a verdict was reached in the wrongful death lawsuit the chart company, Jeppesen, agreed to pay the plaintiffs US$490,000.[8]
References
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- ↑ Incident summary at baa-acro.com Template:Webarchive
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Bonanza Air Lines accidents and incidents at the Aviation Safety Network
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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- ↑ Template:ASN accident
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External links
- Aircraft Accident Report for Flight 114 via baa-acro.com
- Gallery of 26 historic and present-day photos of crash site from the Las Vegas Sun
- Photograph of wreckage at the crash site at bonanzaairlines.com
- Pre-crash photograph of the Fairchild F-27 involved in the incident from the Ed Coates collection
- Color pre-crash photograph of the accident aircraft (with former registration number of N145L)
- Names of passengers and crew Template:Webarchive
Template:Aviation accidents and incidents in 1964 Template:Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in the 1960s
- Pages with script errors
- Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1964
- 1964 in Nevada
- Airliner accidents and incidents in Nevada
- Airliner accidents and incidents involving controlled flight into terrain
- Accidents and incidents involving the Fairchild F-27
- Bonanza Air Lines accidents and incidents
- Events in Clark County, Nevada
- November 1964 in the United States
- Harry Reid International Airport