This article very good, but the airplane shown is not of the wreck on April 6, 1958. First, the CAB report states the engines had ground themselves nearly 5 feet into the ground on impact. Second, the Vickers Viscount 745D had the Rolls Royce Dart 510 engines with 4 bladed props. The picture shown has a three bladed prop.

John

The airplane in the photograph is a Lockheed L1049G or H model Super Constellation.

The Connies engine cowlings have a distinctive shape and the presence of the air diffuser immediately behind the propeller spinner is a dead giveaway.

Dave

Neither the picture or the story is adequate. Wrong pic. The viscount grounded itself, nose first into Farmer Law's field after scalping a lone oak tree in that field. I lived six miles from the crash site and we saw the sky light up and a few seconds later we heard the first of what would be three or more explosions. My Uncle was first person there. He tried to approach the crash when an explosion occurred which ejected bodies out of the wreck. After the fire, their wasn't much left above ground to photograph.

In 1961, I believe it was, I flew the route flight 67 took from Detroit to Tri City in a Viscount. It was the only time I flew in that type. Of the 445 built, 155 incidents occurred with 144 of those incidents resulting in the loss of the aircraft. As a private pilot, I don't mind telling you that I was very uneasy about the performance of that aircraft. Far and away too much vibration and it seemed to tear its way through the sky. It seemed to me that the vibration and the tearing phenomena resulted from differences in the aircraft's engine performance. First one with more thrust than another. This cause a lateral rocking motion from side to side. Further, tail plane(horizontal Stab.)dihedral was severe enough to cause problems at low speed.