Southern Airways Flight 242
The overhead view of the debris field of Southern Airways Flight 242
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | April 4, 1977 |
| Summary | Engine failure in severe weather, pilot error |
| Site |
New Hope, Paulding County, Georgia, United States 33°57′45″N 84°47′13″W / 33.96250°N 84.78694°W |
| Passengers | 81 |
| Crew | 4 |
| Fatalities | 72 (including 9 on ground) |
| Injuries (non-fatal) | 23 |
| Survivors | 22 (originally 23, one died later) |
| Aircraft type | Douglas DC-9-31 |
| Operator | Southern Airways |
| Registration | N1335U |
| Flight origin | Northwest Alabama Regional Airport, Muscle Shoals |
| Stopover | Huntsville-Madison County Jetport |
| Destination | Atlanta Municipal Airport |
Southern Airways Flight 242 was a DC-9-31 jet, registered N1335U, that executed a forced landing on a highway in New Hope, Paulding County, Georgia, United States after suffering hail damage and losing thrust on both engines in a severe thunderstorm on April 4, 1977.
At the time of the accident, the Southern Airways aircraft was flying from Northwest Alabama Regional Airport to Atlanta Municipal Airport. Sixty-three people on the aircraft (including the flight crew) and nine people on the ground died; twenty passengers survived, as well as the two flight attendants. One of the initial survivors died of his injuries a month after the crash.
The flight crew consisted of Captain Bill McKenzie, age 54, a highly experienced pilot with 19,380 flight hours, and co-pilot Lyman Keele, age 34, who had 3,878 flight hours. The crew was advised of the presence of embedded thunderstorms and possible tornadoes along their general route prior to their departure from Huntsville, but they were not subsequently told that the cells had since formed a squall line. The flight crew had flown through that same area from Atlanta earlier in the day, encountering only mild turbulence and light rain.
The weather system had greatly intensified in the meantime. The peak convective activity was later shown on ground radar to be near Rome, Georgia, to which the flight was cleared to proceed by air traffic control. The crew attempted to pick out a path through the cells using their on-board weather radar display, but they were apparently misled by the radar's attenuation effect and they proceeded toward what they believed was a low intensity area, when in fact it was the peak convective activity point, attenuated by rain.
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