national airlines flight 967national airlines flight 967

National Airlines Flight 967, registration N4891C, [1] 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. At this time the flight also contacted New Orleans company radio confirming the ATC clearance and reporting the weather to be CAVU with low solid (undercast) to the WNW. 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. For 3-1/2 to 4minutes the flight continued on a normal track of approximately 296 degrees magnetic. Due to lack of evidence, however, Spears was never charged with any offense in relation to the Flight 967 crash. By using and further navigating this website, you accept this. Acknowledging "there is little or no physical evidence on which to explain this accident", the CAB was forced to conclude, after nearly three years of investigation: Because of lack of physical evidence, the probable cause of this accident is unknown. At Tampa, some passengers deplaned and others boarded. The last radar contact with the aircraft--made at 12:55 am, over the open sea--had indicated the plane was still on course to its destination at the time . United Airlines Flight 718, a DC-7, collided over the Grand Canyon with TWA Flight 2, an L-1049 Super Constellation, . The former Mrs Taylor was becoming increasingly frantic. A Tanzanian airline said on Monday it will start flights to Zimbabwe in December, plying the Harare-Dar es Salaam route three times a week. Search and rescue facilities were activated and the Coast Guard had search aircraft and surface craft in the suspect area before daylight. After several decades of false names, new identities, fresh starts, abandoned wives, abandoned lives--he had spent the last years running "a lucrative underground abortion business". Air Methods. National Air Security Operation Center (NASOC) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Locations: (to include but not limited to the following locations) Sierra Vista, AZ; San Angelo, TX . Though he was legally dead, many had begun to doubt that Taylor was ever on that flight at all. She put it bluntly to the Dallas Morning News: "I believe that Spears hypnotized [Taylor] into doing it.". Members of the party hunting in the shark-infested waters for bodies believe there was an explosion. aviation industry. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. The flight accepted the clearance and stated it would remain at 14,000feet a little longer. IN THE GULF OF MEXICO, NOVEMBER 16, 1959. It was also convenient for National Airlines. After he left, he phoned again three times, again asking for Junior. Revenue passenger traffic in millions of passenger-miles At Miami, National Airlines prepared one of its Convair aircraft, which left for the area at 0545 under the command of the company's chief pilot. 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. D.B. The Coastguardsman on duty saw an unusual light in the sky at an angle which he estimated as about 15 degrees above the horizontal and in the general direction of where N4891C was lost and at about the time it was lost. One part of the investigation focused on the passengers. Spears disagreed with the characterization of himself as a sinister hypnotic puppetmaster. Full-screen FlightAware TV maps for operators or FBOs. Quickly purchase historical reports delivered via email. The search was resumed on November 26, 1959, to the south and west of the previous area based upon drift studies of recovered debris. Dr Spears lived in an affluent suburb of Dallas, and he and his wife were relatively well-known in the citys social circles. National Airlines Flight 967, registration N4891C,[1] 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. The scenes in this video are from the documentary series Air Crash Investigation.None of them belong to me.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Airlines_. At 0005 the flight reported to Tampa company radio as over Crab at 0002 and estimated NL1, also a customary reporting point, at 0031, at 14,000feet. That day the two men also reportedly met with a man they referred to in letters only as "the fellow". Who knows, Taylor might show up one day, alive and healthy. National Airlines Flight 193, registration N4744, Donna, was a Boeing 727-235 en route from Miami, Florida to Pensacola on May 8, 1978. . Unfortunately, these searches were not successful. On November 16, 1959, an airplane vanished over the Gulf of Mexico, with 42 people onboard. In this case, the plane likely suffered the same fate. All 42 on board were presumed killed in the incident. Taylor would fly and Spears would drive. According to the Senior Passenger Agent for National Airlines, there were no established procedures in 1959 for determining if a reporting passenger was the same person for whom the reservation was made. The aircraft was crossing an area of severe weather and possibly flew into a waterspout. Someone connected to the abortion case? Great attention to detail. He kept checking his watch, his ex-wife later said, and looked anxious to leave". The history of the original National Airlines spanned nearly fifty years and during that time it The mafia? No severe weather was forecast, anticipated or reported at flight altitudes over the route. Select the responses you agree with. This air traffic control instruction/clearance was issued through National Airlines' radio station/office at Pensacola, Florida, a normal procedure before making the approach to Moisant International Airport (KMSY) in New Orleans. Back then, you could get on a plane, put something in the luggage rack, and then right before take off say "Excuse me, is this the plane to Dallas? Otherwise, the loading of the aircraft was normal with the center of gravity located within prescribed limits and the gross weight some 11,000pounds under maximum permissible for takeoff. 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. The FBI then tracked him down through surveillance. There was nothing immediately remarkable about Dr Spears. This position is about 108miles east-southeast of New Orleans, about 30miles east of Pilottown, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and very nearly on the planned course. Cheapest ticket price on Dubai to Toronto Skycraft Air Transport flight air ticket at MakeMyTrip UAE. The aircraft had been called into service on short notice when the normal aircraft used for the evening . It turned out he had a long criminal record--a string of confidence schemes, forgery, and thefts under a variety of aliases. The aircraft was a DC-7, N 4891C, owned by Delta Air Lines and operated by National under an equipment interchange agreement. St. Petersburg Times. What an intriguing case - how have I never heard of this before? This new story was made public in 1963. 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. Hudson is an Equal Opportunity Employer of all qualified individuals. National Airlines Flight 967 of November 15, 1959, was scheduled between Miami, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana, with a stop at Tampa, Florida. Who hatched the plot--Spears? I can understand him taking out an insurance policy. Predictive technology to strengthen customer trust in your operations. All 42 on board were presumed killed in the accident. Goodness, I'm on the wrong plane!" While spiralling, radio contact was established with Coast Guard aircraft although no direct contact was possible with Coast Guard surface vessels due to the lack of compatible radio frequencies. [Some context here: In the 50s, life insurance vending machines were commonplace in airports. At 0044 the flight again contacted FAA Pensacola and advised that it would change over to company frequency and would report to the company when leaving 14,000feet and7,000 feet. She told them all about her missing husband and his missing pink Plymouth, which sparked a nationwide search. 03 hrs 40 mins . Yet cracks soon appeared in this image too. Robert Vernon Spears, a nationally known naturopathic doctor from . I cant believe I dont remember the name but the one where the guy hijacked the plane and parachuted out over Washington state? On October 5, 1945 National Airlines Flight 16, a Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar (registered NC18199) crashed into a lake near Lakeland, . 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. [5], "Con Man, Best Man, An Air Crash - A Far Out, Far Up Mystery", "Robert Spears, 1959 bomb suspect, dies in Dallas", Aviation Safety Network report on Flight 967, Civil Aeronautics Board Aircraft Accident Report on Flight 967, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Spears_(naturopath)&oldid=1106844718, This page was last edited on 26 August 2022, at 19:28. Tampa Police Detective John C. Daniels was among those who did not buy the hypnosis theory: Taylor was in debt over his head. 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. National Airlines operated the first two legs between Miami and Tampa, and Tampa and New Orleans. About 72 square miles south of the area originally covered in November was swept and bottom contact approximately 110feet long was made at Lat. From March16 through25,1960, the VITAL and the BITTERN continued searching in other areas and many botton contacts were obtained but none proved to be aircraft wreckage. Spears immediately said he had made the whole thing up after the reporter had pressured him to tell him something new. None of this disclosed conclusive evidence as to the genesis of the accident. The last radio contact with the flight was at 12:44 AM, when the flight contacted company radio in New Orleans. The autopsies of the bodies, all of which were identified by fingerprints, indicated that all had received traumatic injuries: injuries indicated that all nine persons had been seated at the time the aircraft struck the water. He also cites the testimony of Spearss wife, neighbors and friends who spoke of him as a lovely person and a gentleman and expressed utter disbelief that he would be capable of doing something so heinous as taking down a passenger aircraft. On January 6, 1960 (less than two months after Flight 967) Frank was on board a National Airlines flight which was blown up by dynamite over North Carolina, resulting in 34 deaths. Spears disappeared after the accident but was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, with Taylor's car in January, 1960. His wife would then cash in an insurance policy for $100,000 on Spears' life. Mrs Spears replied that she had not. As he said in a recent interview: "The more that I learned through the research about Spears, even though this guy had an incredibly profound criminal past [] he never had any history of violence at all. He heard no noise. On the night of November 15, 1959, a DC-7 with forty-two persons aboard took off from Tampa International Airport on a regularly scheduled flight to New Orleans. The U.S.S. Geo resource failed to load. The two had met in the Missouri State Penitentiary, back when Taylor was still known as Albert O. Thompson. The conclusion of the Official CAB Accident Report (June 11, 1962): The Board, with the aid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has thoroughly investigated Mr Spears activities in order to determine whether they might have had any bearing upon the accident. 432 in 1951, 905 in 1955, 1041 in 1960, 2663 in 1965, 2643 in 1970, 3865 in 1975. Recently, she said, Al Taylor had been strangely depressed and withdrawn, but his mood only lifted when he talked to Spears. Sometimes with these mysteries that were so long ago it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the victims were people who were loved and cared for by many. In 1964, it became the first exclusively jet powered service in the United States, and by 1970 became the third airline to offer transcontinental passenger flights. Taylor's body was not among those recovered. There she discovered a receipt addressed to their son Junior. I do think Taylor took Spears spot on the plane last minute (hence only the briefcase, no luggage), but I don't think Taylor nor Spears intended to blow up the plane. These were determined, the aircraft were spiralled down to the same site, and the bearings were radioed to the Coast Guard and plotted on their charts as 2907'N and 8833'W. 1 adult. A rival airline company? All 42 occupants perished. * Lockheed Super H Constellation 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. I wonder how long it took the police to find out about all these shady characters. The personal effects consisted of shoes, clothing, parts of leather suitcases and other traveling paraphernalia. I was completely drawn in. Down the rabbit hole I go. Our global headquarters is situated in Orlando FL, with several operational hubs across the globe in Buffalo NY, Chicago IL, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Madrid, Dubai, Djibouti, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Pertinent details are: William Allen Taylor, of Tampa, Florida, disappeared November 15, 1959, after telephoning his employer he would be late for work. It has been claimed that Dr Spears tried to access a vial of cyanide before his sentencing--but some have disputed this. National Airlines records do not show a ticket issued in his name and he was not carried on their records as a passenger on Flight967. but he would have had to have done some rushing to get aboard the plane because it taxied away at 12:25 am. National Airlines Flight 967. The line between the airports does. James L. Sigman, executive officer of the Coast Guard station at New Orleans, said the plane might have exploded when it struck the water. According to Alan C. Logans book, Taylor had also met with Frank in New York (though Logan does not explain why). * Convair CV-440 Searching continued through November23. 14 relations. Self-employed. Citing reports that Spears may have gone to Yuma while hiding out in Arizona, Logan notes, At that time the long US-Mexico border to the west and south of Yuma was largely unpatrolled.. . * Douglas DC-4 Mrs Spears said that when he came to see her, Spears was sad about Taylors death. This page was last edited on 5 May 2019, at 15:31. "I asked him if anything had been done to plane and he said no". The flight had been on its way from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans. 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. The flight had been on its way from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans. Spectacular job. This is the story Spears gave after his arrest: He said he had been in Tampa and was planning on heading back to Dallas on November 16. Track National Aeronautics and Space Administration #967 flight from Victoria Rgnl to Houston Ellington Flight status, tracking, and historical data for National Aeronautics and Space Administration 967 (NASA967) including scheduled, estimated, and actual departure and arrival times. [citation needed], Spears was eventually arrested in Phoenix after being turned in by the ex-wife a fellow naturopath in Arizona. ", Alan C. Logans book also cites a vague remark by Mr Turska that Spears was not alone when he showed up in Arizona after the crash. Thats another good one if youre not already familiar with it. The aircraft was a DC-7, N4891C, owned by Delta Air Lines and operated by National under an equipment interchange agreement. Capt. He planned to intimidate the witness in that case somehow with a bomb (not to kill her but to intimidate her). Two dozen books on hypnosis had been found in Spears's home in Dallas. Initially, there was some speculation based on the fact that a noted Chicago mobster--Ellis Itchy Mandel--was on the flight. In the weeks after the crash, the mystery of Flight 967 deepened. Interchange flights like this were fairly common before the CAB awarded more direct routes beginning with the Southeast to West Coast case in 1961. Subsequent investigation has failed to reveal the use of any marine signal flash or pyrotechnic, which might have had a somewhat similar appearance, at the time and place. According to the hotel staff, Taylor was talking about boarding a flight to Dallas--the waitress specifically remembered making small talk about Dallas. He moved to California and took up hypnotism, his business was with a doctor performing abortions (which were then illegal in the U.S.). You can easily find cheap flights / LCC plane tickets from Lloydminster Airport in Lloydminster to Columbia. The agent's attention was drawn elsewhere, however, and he never noticed if the man boarded the flight or not. Some of the bodies showed distinct evidence of burning on portions exposed above their waterlines. National Airlines Flight 967 of November 15, 1959, was scheduled between Miami, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana, with a stop at Tampa, Florida. NATIONAL AIRLINES, INC., DOUGLAS DC-7B, N4891C DC-7 [] Template . He had become financially successful in Texas as a naturopath, even becoming president of the Texas Naturopath Association in 1954. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. He was cleared by the New Orleans Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC - ZNO) located in the terminal building at New Orleans Lakefront Airport to descend to and maintain 5,000 feet and to report leaving 8,000 feet. I think it's because "my friend took my ticket last minute under my name, but when I heard the plane exploded, i decided to duck out and start a new life because not only am i a con man, I was in big trouble for illegal abortions too" doesn't make for a convincing story. There have been dozens of plane crashes due to explosive decompression. Carefully the investigators went through the flight manifest. 46 people perished. We appreciate you trying our new Live Surface Map feature. It was a starlit night, and good weather conditions were reported all along the route. A subreddit dedicated to the unresolved mysteries of the world. This position was buoyed and two dives were made in depths of 210 feet. - October 5, 1945, a Lockheed Lodestar crashed into a lake in Lakeland, Florida with two fatalities. National Airlines Flight 967 took off from Tampa (TPA) at 23:32 for a flight to New Orleans (MSY) at FL140. 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. He was charged with unlawful possession of an automobile but due to lack of evidence was never charged in the alleged bombing of Flight 967. Alan C. Logan is among those who dismiss this second story as fiction. 8837.3'W. That crash remains officially unexplained also. In spite of this string of suspicious details, the airplane was still missing, therefore there was no hope of charging Spears with anything relating to the crash. I loathed him, she said, and had always considered him a bad influence on Al. Thank you for the great write-up. The National crew consisted of Captain Frank Eugene Todd, Copilot Dick . Logan asks a number of questions--whether Taylor could have planned a murder-suicide without Spearss knowledge, whether Taylor boarded the flight at all, whether the last-minute insurance policy was an intentional red herring to throw off investigators and utterly confuse everyone?

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