The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-10-03
American Airlines Ship + Hits Newfoundland Hill
Plane Bursts Into Flames As ItHits Peck

otephenVllle, NELL, oct. 3 - (UP) - A four engine transatlantic airliner explod- ed against a rocky hillside 12 miles east of here early to- day, and a ground rescue party which reached the scene five hours later indicat- ed that all the 39 persons aboard had been killed.
 Only visual communication with the ground party had been established, but pilots flying over the ruined plane said their hand signals indicated none had survived.
 It was the worst tragedy in the history of commercial aviation, and most of those aboard the American Overseas Airlines DC-4 were Americans, number of them wives and children of Americans in Germany, who were flying to join their men.
 Landed To Refuel The plane, enroute from New York to Berlin, had landed to re- fuel at Harmon Field here, because Gander, NFLD., 160 miles away. was weathered in. Gander was the scene just two weeks ago yesterday of the crash of a Sabena CBelgian) Airlines plan, in which 27 died. Capt James Johnson of the pulp lie relations section of the Air Transport Command here, said the Harmon Field tower crew and others watched the big plane make a normal takeoff, under a 5,000-foot ceiling, just before 3:3O A. M.
 Then they watched in horror as it plunged into the rocky hillside. only 100 feet below the crest of & 1,9O0-foot elevation, 12 miles from the field.
 The plane exploded, Johnson said, and flames shot into the sky. Weather Clear There was no way to tell, John son said, why the plane failed to gain enough altitude to clear the hill. He said the weather was clear enough so that the pilots vision could not have been obscured Ground rescue parties set out at once to fight their way through the wooded Muskeg terrain, typical rough Newfoundland country, to the crashed plane.
 One party reached it at about 9:30 A. M., just five hours after the crash, and it was then that air ob- servers concluded, from their sig nals, that none of the 28 adult passengers, three babies, and eight crewmen had survived.
 Hope practically had been aban- doned earlier, Lt-Col Howard Max well, ATC commanding officer at Harmon Field, had flown over the scene and returned to report. When l asked if there were any survivors: NIt looks pretty grim and quiet" Plane Charred And Jack Shelley, operations manager of American Overseas Air lines here, returning from 8 similar flight, said the plane was burned beyond recognition" and that it was very doubtful" anyone could have lived.
 | N1Il 4NCN kIlG NOdSI received a message from one of it's BITS flying over the crash scene which said that the possibility of survivors was extremely remote" The message added that the plane appeared to have exploded and that only fragments were visible. (An Air Force pilot arriving
 in New York about Il A. M. said
 he flew over the wreck about
 two hours after it occurred and
 that the twisted wreckage
 still was burning at that time.)
 The crash toll might well have been 40 instead of 39. George Mo- Call of Newark, N. J., an AOA crewman, was aboard the plane as "dead-head" from New York to Stephenville, but left it here. His name at first was included in the list of dead.
 Hekcopter EnrOute To Field
 A Coast Guard helicopter, which successfully rescued IS survivors of the Sabena crash at Gander two weeks ago, was enroute here, but it was doubted that it could land in the rugged area of the crash a wilderness of rocks and scrubby trees.
 Hanson said that the question of removing the bodies of the victims had not been decided as yet. It would be most difficul operation. he said, and possibility was seen that they would be buried at the place they died, as was done in the case of the 26 who were killed at the Gander crash scene. A 27th victim of that crash died in hos- pital after rescue.
 The crash occurred at 3:34 A. M. EST, less than 10 minutes after the plane had taken of from Harmon Field here on its overseas flight. It had landed here to refuel be- cause the weather was bad at Gander, NFLD., the usual stop. Gander. 16O miles away, was the scene two weeks ago yesterday gk the crash of a Sabena Belgian5 airlines plane with 27 victims.