NTSB agrees to review 1967 midair collision

~ A Cessna 310 and a Boeing 727 passenger jet crashed near Hendersonville, N.C.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- The National Transportation Safety Board has agreed to review a 1967 deadly midair collision in North Carolina that had long been blamed on Missourians.

The NTSB has agreed to look at evidence from amateur historian Paul Houle, who lives a few miles from the rural North Carolina crash site.

The 1967 crash near Hendersonville, N.C., killed 82 people, including Springfield insurance executives Ralph E. Reynolds, 48, and Robert E. Anderson, 36; the pilot of their twin-engine Cessna, John David Addison, 48, of Lebanon, Mo.; and the 74 passengers and five crew on Piedmont Airlines' Flight 22.

The NTSB's report issued 14 months later said the probable cause "was the deviation of the Cessna 310 from its IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) clearance, resulting in a flightpath into airspace allocated to the Piedmont Boeing 727."

But Houle argued that the investigation was flawed and may have unfairly blamed the Missourians for the crash.

Fire in the cockpit

Houle's petition asking the NTSB to re-evaluate the crash said air traffic controllers had given confusing instructions, the 727 pilot had strayed from his specified course and the plane's crew was distracted by a fire in a cockpit ashtray less than a minute before the collision. Houle also noted that the NTSB's chief investigator was the brother of a Piedmont vice president. Both brothers have since died.

NTSB generally accepts requests filed only by "parties to the investigation or hearing" or those with a "direct interest."

The NTSB's acting chairman, Mark V. Rosenker, recently wrote in a letter to Houle that "although the regulations do not define 'persons having a direct interest,' this language was not meant to include independent researchers who have no other connection to an accident."

Nevertheless, Rosenker said, "I have decided that we will consider and evaluate your request as a proper petition."

Anderson's widow, Jacquelyn Hogan of Nixa, told the Springfield News-Leader for a story Sunday, "I hope they can change the record and set it straight."

After the crash, investigators questioned her, suggesting her husband, an amateur pilot, might have been piloting the Cessna, although radio transmissions showed it was being flown by Addison, a professional with 10,000 hours of flight time logged.

Holly Anderson Case was 10 when the collision happened and said she was ridiculed about the NTSB's findings.

Telling the truth

"This isn't about shifting the blame. This is simply about telling the truth of the events of that day," said Case, who recently returned to the Springfield area after living in Florida for several years.

One of her brothers, Robert E. Anderson Jr., who lives near Kansas City, said the truth needs to be told.

"I know that most people would say, 'It's been 39 years, let it go,"' he said. "We cannot. The lies and injustices meted out upon the families of all the victims need to be corrected."

Houle said he hopes the NTSB focuses "strictly on the facts, and that those facts are analyzed with no outside influences affecting the outcome, unlike what seems to have been the case in the first investigation."

Houle, a truck fleet manager in Spartanburg, S.C., majored in history in college. He started looking into the collision after moving to Spartanburg a few years ago. He became convinced the NTSB's initial finding was flawed after reading records and interviewing people involved with the investigation.

---

Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com