A Tragedy in Montoursville: Remembering the Crash of Flight 371

 

Sixty-one years ago today, on December 1, 1959, a twin-engine Allegheny Airlines plane crashed into the side of a mountain at Montoursville, killing all but one of the twenty-six people on board. The tragic story of Flight 371 is remarkable because it shows just how fickle fate can be; had any one of several different factors not come into play, or had the stars aligned in a slightly different way, perhaps the greatest aviation disaster in Lycoming County history could have been averted.

Founded in 1949, Allegheny Airlines had built an impressive record during its first decade of existence. The airline had operated without a single fatality, and had been awarded two national awards for safety. In fact, the airline's pristine record dated all the way back to 1939 when the company, which was known as All American Aviation Company at the time, was founded by the duPont brothers as an airmail delivery service. 

On a bitter cold Tuesday morning, a twin piston-engined Martin 2-0-2 took off from Philadelphia and landed in Harrisburg thirty-five minutes later with nineteen passengers. Six of the passengers got off in Harrisburg, and nine more boarded the aircraft. The plane-- a popular model known as a "Martin Executive"-- was loaded with 22 passengers, four crewmen, and six hundred pounds of luggage when it departed Harrisburg at 9:06 a.m. This flight, Flight 371, was scheduled to arrive in Cleveland after making stops at Williamsport, Bradford and Erie.

Aside from the cold weather and overcast skies, there was no reason to believe the plane would not arrive at the Montoursville-Williamsport Airport safely; at the time of takeoff from Harrisburg, the gross weight of the aircraft was over a ton below the maximum takeoff weight, and the three pilots were among the best the airline had to offer. As a pilot, Captain Thomas Ronald Goldsmith had nine years of experience flying for Allegheny Airlines, and had racked up nearly 10,000 hours in the skies, with nearly 1,200 of those hours in the captain's seat of a Martin 2-0-2. Captain Goldsmith was joined by George Matthew Bowers, who occupied the co-pilot's seat, and Donald Winston Tygert, who occupied the jump seat. These men were joined by William Conger, the lone flight attendant aboard Flight 371.

As fate would have it, Thomas Goldsmith had not been scheduled to fly that day. The 30-year-old father of a newborn infant, Goldsmith was in the middle of a two-week vacation and had been looking forward to a quiet day at his home in North Olmstead, Ohio. He was not due back until Friday. But when the airline informed Goldsmith that the originally-scheduled pilot was ill, his sense of duty compelled him to leave his wife and child and race to the airport. The co-pilot, George Bowers, had also wrestled with the decision to go to work that day; for it was his 32nd birthday, and if not for the fact that he was unmarried and had no special plans, Bowers probably would've taken the day off. However, being that his hometown of Parma offered little in the way of nightlife, Bowers thought it would be better to earn a paycheck than to take a personal day.

 

An Allegheny Airlines Martin 2-0-2 "Executive"

 

The Martin Executive earned its nickname because it was the plane of choice for businessmen from New York to Tokyo, but the passengers of Flight 371 were anything but movers and shakers and titans of industry. Among the passengers were Andy Guff, a used car salesman from Harrisburg, and his employer, Arthur Levin. There was Mrs. Ruth Ferguson, a middle-aged housewife from Camp Hill who was going to Cleveland to visit her son, and Hank Snyder, an inspector at the Phoenix Steel Company's plant in Harrisburg. There was Reverend Theodore Engist, the rector of St. Boniface Church in Philadelphia, and Sinclair Muir, a representative of the International Typographical Union. There was Jack Svitzer, the airline's sales manager, and Lou Matarazzo, the 36-year-old manager of a Philadelphia sportswear company who was traveling to Cleveland on business. Added to the manifest were a slew of housewives and small-town businessmen from places like Jenkinstown, Havertown, Pottstown and other working-class Philadelphia suburbs.

Aviation had played an important role in the growth of Williamsport during the early 20th century. In 1909, Fred and Harry Burns built the first functional airplane in Lycoming County. When they grew tired of flying their airplane they sold it to the Mexican Federal Army, who used it for scouting purposes. But it was Cleo Francis Pineau, the famed WW1 ace and champion motorcycle racer, who helped put Lycoming County on the aviation map when he teamed up with a local pilot named A.W. Hinaman and founded the region's first airport. The airport, constructed on a 161-acre family farm in Montoursville, was chartered in 1928 and would eventually become the Williamsport Regional Airport. By the 1940s, the airport was served by TWA, Pennsylvania Central Airlines, and All American-- the airmail delivery company that would soon come to be known as Allegheny Airlines.

The airport sits outside the borough of Montoursville in a saucer-like bowl surrounded on three sides by the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, with the 1,400-foot Bald Eagle Mountain rising abruptly on its southern side. The airport boasted a small FAA facility that provided pilots with a low frequency radio beam, which brought the planes close enough to the facility for pilots to make visual landings. This system was reliable for many years when airplanes were small and powered by small engines, but as the volume of air traffic increased and planes grew larger and faster, the need for a control tower became evident. By 1958 plans were in the works for a control tower at the Montoursville airport, and construction began the following year. Construction of the control tower was scheduled to be completed by November of 1959. Unfortunately, because of unforeseen delays, the tower did not become operational until December 5-- three days after the crash of Flight 371.

Snow was falling heavily in Montoursville when Flight 371 made its approach at the airport. The plane was cleared for a 9:41 a.m. landing and Captain Goldsmith followed the low frequency radio beam until the airport came into view.  However, because of the swirling snow he was unable to see the runway. Realizing that a visual landing was impossible, the pilot circled the landing strip and began to re-gain altitude, planning on making a second pass and attempting a dangerous instrument landing. For an inexperienced pilot this would be a daring move, but Flight 371 was in capable hands; if anyone could make a blind landing guided only by a cluster of gauges and the sound of the twin engines, it was Captain Goldsmith.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Tom Schadt stopped in his tracks and watched the plane circle the landing strip. Schadt, a salesman, had been walking to his company's plant, which adjoined the airport, when his attention was drawn to the Martin 2-0-2. "I heard the pilot gun his motors," Schadt recalled. "A second or two later there was a gigantic crash." Were it not for zero-visibility weather conditions, Captain Goldsmith would have been able to see the hulking form of Bald Eagle Mountain. The plane struck the mountain at the midway point, cutting a wide swath through the snowy tree-studded slope and exploding into flames. The fuselage was shredded to bits, but, oddly, the tail section was virtually undamaged. 

It was this tail section that gave away the location of the crash site to the Air Force helicopter pilot who had been dispatched from Olmstead Air Force Base in Harrisburg. The wreckage was spotted at 11:25 a.m. The pilot later said that he could see one passenger who was up in the branches of a tree, still trapped to his seat. Believing there might be survivors, the helicopter pilot radioed for medical aid and landed in Williamsport to pick up a few doctors who had answered the call. They returned to the crash site, which was now swarming with rescuers-- and discovered three passengers clinging to life.

The rescuers lashed the three survivors to a litter, and each victim was lowered by rope down the snow-laden slope to a train at the base of the mountain which had been turned into a makeshift field hospital. These survivors were Fred Gettys of New Cumberland, William Derry of Pottstown, and the manager of the sportswear company, Lou Matarazzo. Gettys and Derry, however, died from their injuries before the train reached Divine Providence Hospital in Williamsport.

 

 

"The first thing I saw was one man, creeping and crawling, coming down the mountain," said volunteer firefighter Donald Ault, who was among the first on the scene. "He was just mumbling and moaning." The dazed passenger was Lou Matarazzo, who would become the lone survivor of the crash. Matarazzo recounted his harrowing experience from his his hospital bed. 

"The Lord opened my side of the plane and I was able to jump out," he said. "Then I fought my way through flames, and on through the wreckage." Matarazzo suffered severe burns, and as he spoke of his escape from the jaws of death, his eyes were covered with bandages.

"The steward was just turning on the loudspeaker and telling us we were coming in. All of a sudden the pilot seemed to race the motors and pull up. There was a crash. The plane burst and exploded." One of the first to reach Matarazzo was Rev. Francis P. Corcoran, a local Catholic priest. 

"Thank God you're here, Father," cried Matarazzo, a veteran and father of four. "I'm not afraid to die. I'm not afraid to face God... but, just look at those other poor people." 

Any hope of finding other survivors was short-lived. The mountainside had been turned into a hellscape, with bodies and wreckage strewn over a 40-yard radius. George Bowers, the co-pilot, had both legs ripped from his body. Many of the other victims were found in an even more mangled condition on the north side of Bald Eagle Mountain.

"This was the worst tragedy of its kind we've ever had to deal with," remarked Harry Klett, of the Lycoming County chapter of the Red Cross. "You have no idea how tough it is getting down that mountain. It's just straight up and down for nearly three-quarters of a mile. And it's nothing but rocks and brush."

 

Dr. Wilfred Wilcox being lowered to the crash site

Around lunchtime on Monday, December 1, Patricia Allen grew nervous. She was at the airport in Cleveland, waiting for the arrival of Flight 371 and her fiance, flight steward William T. Conger. Patricia was a ticket agent for Allegheny Airlines, and she and Conger were planning on getting married the following month. After the plane failed to arrive, Patricia went to the department store where her fiance's mother worked. Mrs. Conger tried to reassure the anxious young woman.

"I never worry about Bill's flying," said Mrs. Conger. "If I worry, it is that a flight will be canceled out at some airport where he can't get a hot meal and a comfortable bed. But not about crashes."

Nonetheless, Mr. and Mrs. Conger accompanied Patricia to their son's suburban Lakewood apartment, where they planned on waiting for William to arrive-- or at least some explanation for his delay. And then the phone rang. "I understand," said Mrs. Conger in a small, quiet voice. "None of the crew survived." Mrs. Conger sat silently with the telephone in her lap. Her husband placed his arm around her shoulder, then broke down in tears.

"God Almighty," he sobbed. "Why couldn't it have been me?"

 

 

Undoubtedly, similar heart-wrenching scenes were taking place in twenty-five other homes that afternoon, but in Washington, DC, federal aviation authorities were focused on trying to ascertain the cause of the crash. While numerous witnesses on the ground stated they had seen the pilot turn left into the side of Bald Eagle Mountain, an autopsy of the co-pilot, George Bowers, revealed evidence of severe heart disease, leading some to wonder if a medical emergency had been to blame for the fatal crash. In January, Oscar Bakke of the Civil Aeronautics Board testified before Senate investigators and suggested that a heart attack may have triggered the disaster. According to Bakke, one of the co-pilot's arteries was ninety percent clogged at the time of his death.

After months of investigation, however, this theory was dismissed, and in November of 1960 the Civil Aeronautics Board published a report of its findings, pinning the blame on pilot error caused by a faulty magnetomometer, or "fluxgate compass". The board concluded that the compass had provided the pilot with an erroneous reading.

In 2016, two local men, Shane Collins and Mark Avery, erected a memorial plaque at the site of the 1959 crash, which is on state forest land. After getting approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Naturalization, Collins-- who had heard about the crash from an uncle who had visited the site at the time of the tragedy, rushed out to purchase supplies. John Bowers, a nephew of Flight 371's co-pilot, contributed funds toward the cost of the memorial. Today, the crash site is registered with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission as an official archaeological site, thereby making it illegal to remove any of the remaining wreckage, and thus protecting the swath of rugged, lonesome mountainside where twenty-five men and women met their untimely end.

Sources:

Centralia (WA) Daily Chronicle, Dec. 1, 1959.
Arizona Daily Star, Dec. 2, 1959.
Pocono Record, Dec. 2, 1959.
Hazleton Standard-Speaker, Dec. 2, 1959.
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Dec. 2, 1959.
Hanover Evening Sun, Dec. 2, 1959.
Nashville Tennessean, Dec. 2, 1959.
Clearfield Progress, Dec. 5, 1959.
York Daily Record, Jan. 23, 1960.