Kentucky Enquirer
Sunday October 25, 2009
'60s plane crashes not forgotten
By Kevin Kelly
HEBRON – The image that Dorian Hart-Cochrane has of her father is a collage of treasured details collected since his death.
She was just an infant on Nov. 8, 1965, when American Airlines Flight 383 slammed into a wooded hillside that rises above Ky. 8 and the Ohio River on its approach to what then was known as the Greater Cincinnati Airport.
There were 62 passengers and crew on board the Boeing 727. Fifty-eight died, including Bruce Hart, a 36-year-old sound engineer for Decca Records. He was traveling from New York to Cincinnati to record the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at Music Hall.“He was involved as a sound engineer for many classical recordings of that day for Decca,” said Hart-Cochrane, who lives in Hyannis, Mass.
An online search led Hart- Cochrane to a Dayton, Ohio, man who has spent several years researching and writing about the crash of Flight 383. Earlier this year, he helped establish the “Flight 383 and 128 Memorial Project.”
The group is raising money to buy memorial markers to place near the crash sites of Flight 383 and TWA Flight 128, which went down two years later in an orchard that is now the Airpark International Distribution Center off Aviation Boulevard. The Convair 880 jet came to rest al- most 7,000 feet short of what is now the center north/south runway at the Cincinnati/ Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Flight 128 was carrying 82 passengers and crew from Los Angeles. Twelve survived.
The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky calls the crash of TWA Flight 128 “the worst airplane crash in Cincinnati’s history.”
Rollie Puterbaugh, 58, followed the news reports on WLW-AM. The subsequent investigations grabbed his interest and inspired him to pursue an aviation-maintenance degree at the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics.
“It started the day of the crash for some reason, “ Puterbaugh said.”And the picture of the tail of that plane sitting on the hillside , that stuck in my mind”.
His research into Flight 383 ultimately connected him with Linda Holbrook, Mark Free, Harvey Pelley and Chris Stephens.
Pelley was a firefighter with the Hebron Volunteer Fire Department, which responded to both crashes. Stephens’ grandparents helped survivors of the Flight 128 crash. Holbrook was working as a Cincinnati Bell telephone operator the night of Flight 128 crashed and recalls being flooded with calls from family members searching for information about loved ones.
From inside his family’s home in Hebron, Free witnessed the glow of Flight 128 exploding after it crashed . He was 13 years old.
“I’ve often wondered why no one ever really bothered to memorialize the victims,” Free said. It was kind of like it was news for a couple of weeks and after that people just kind of forgot about it.
The “Flight 383 and 128 Memorial Project” has grown to include more than 20 supporters, including 3 survivors of Flight 128. The group has set up a bank account to collect donations.
The markers will cost an estimated $2,500 to $3,500 each. The group has not finalized the exact spots where the markers would be placed.
“I just think it’s a fitting tribute to the people {on the planes} and people like Harvey who helped carry people down off of the hill to remind people that it happened,” Holbrook said. “And it never has been done.:”
Puterbaugh led a hike Saturday morning to the hillside where Flight 383 came to rest two miles north and east of the center north/south runway.The site is on private property , but Puterbaugh had permission from the property owner.
Although it is well camouflaged, some scars created by the violent impact and subsequent recovery efforts remain visible more than four decades later.
Fallen trees bare scorch marks. An access road carved into the hillside to simplify the recovery process is remarkably well preserved. Some small pieces of twisted debris from the wreckage have been found at the site.
It is a surprisingly peaceful place, where saplings have taken root and their fall colors blanketed the damp ground on Saturday. Quiet, until the next arriving plane passes just to the west.
“In the spring it’s real pretty and it’s very calm,” Puterbaugh said. “You would never know it happened.”
Saturday afternoon, retired American Airlines flight attendants Arlene Huber, Barbie Osborne and Jeanine Browning met with Puterbaugh and Free in the lobby of the Cincinnati Airport Marriott to discuss the “Flight 383 and 128 Memorial Project.” Huber was working for the airline in 1965 and for several months after the crash of Flight 383 helped care for Toni Ketchell, a flight attendant who survived the crash.
“It’s very nice of you guys to do this,” Osborne told the men.
Hart-Cochrane considered participating in Saturday’s hike, but said she is still not quite ready to visit the site. Possibly in the next year, or when the Flight 383 memorial marker is dedicated. “It will be very emotional but very exciting,” she said. “I think people would like to remember that these were vital lives and they were important even though they are not here anymore.
“They were human beings. They deserve some kind of remembrance.”