National Air Security Operation Center (NASOC) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Locations: (to include but not limited to the following locations) Sierra Vista, AZ; San Angelo, TX . The aircraft was crossing an area of severe weather and possibly flew into a waterspout. Franks body was found with injuries significantly different from and much more extensive than the other passengers, injuries which were inconsistent with the type of injury usually incurred in an aircraft accident. The Board, with the aid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has thoroughly investigated Mr. Goodness, I'm on the wrong plane!" Just in case you have yet to hear about it, I recommend you check out r/AdmiralCloudberg since you love aviation mysteries. - November 16, 1959, a DC-7B flown on an interchange route with Delta Air Lines, in a Delta aircraft but with a NAL crew National Airlines Flight 967, en route from Tampa to New Orleans, disappeared over the Gulf of Mexico. Debt collectors got involved--suddenly "every repo man in America" was looking for a pink Plymouth. In fact, Turska had also been facing abortion charges in November 1959 (though Turskas charges were later dropped). Dr Spears lived in an affluent suburb of Dallas, and he and his wife were relatively well-known in the citys social circles. Spears immediately said he had made the whole thing up after the reporter had pressured him to tell him something new. Frank was covered by $900,000 in life insurance policies at the time of his death, and had also been under investigation for corruption. In Autumn 1960, while in jail, Spears agreed to a taped interview with reporter Ed Barker. National Airlines Flight 967, registration N4891C, was a Douglas DC-7B aircraft that disappeared over the Gulf of Mexico en route from Tampa, Florida to New Orleans, Louisiana on November 16, 1959. According to Logans book, Mrs Taylor was media savvy, and exaggerated her closeness with Taylor before his disappearance. So, I think he spun a couple different stories to see if any if them fit enough to get in the least amount of trouble. It's possible it was not a direct flight, and the next leg would have been from NO to Dallas. On January 6, 1960 (less than two months after Flight 967) Frank was on board a National Airlines flight which was blown up by dynamite over North Carolina, resulting in 34 deaths. The conclusion of the Official CAB Accident Report (June 11, 1962): The Board, with the aid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has thoroughly investigated Mr Spears activities in order to determine whether they might have had any bearing upon the accident. Spears said he begrudgingly gave his Flight 967 ticket to Al Taylor, a friend who couldn't face a long drive to Dallas. One passenger, William Taylor, had boarded the flight using a ticket issued to Robert Vernon Spears, a convicted criminal working at the time as a naturopath. Select the responses you agree with. * Douglas DC-10-10/30, AviationExplorer.com - The Website For Aviation Enthusiasts, NATIONAL AIRLINES HISTORY FACTS AND PICTURES, Aviation Military and Police Phonetic Alphabet, NTSB Aviation Accidents From Last 10 Years, High Resolution Military Aviation Desktop Wallpapers. In that interview, he said he knew about the plane crash, admitted taking Spears to see his wife, and said that Spears had confided in him that he wanted to start a new life: He wanted to change his character, Turska said, change his fingerprints, change everything.. * Douglas DC-7B . Posts about National Airlines Flight 967 written by The Flightpath. The flight originated in Miami at 1022 PM the p Frank E. Todd of Miami, the pilot, radioed his last message at 12:44a.m. In this case, the plane likely suffered the same fate. As has been detailed, the fire marks on bodies and on debris were of the type caused exclusively by a flash surface fire, probably both hot and brief, upon impact with the water. The prosecutor in Spearss abortion case pointed out they already had sworn affidavits from the abortion witnesses, which they could simply have read out in court. At the heart of the book is the crash of National Airlines Flight 967, which plunged into the Gulf of Mexico on Nov. 16, 1959. I told him it wouldn't work!". He also cites the testimony of Spearss wife, neighbors and friends who spoke of him as a lovely person and a gentleman and expressed utter disbelief that he would be capable of doing something so heinous as taking down a passenger aircraft. In the postwar era, its fleet consisted of the: * Convair CV-340 I think it's because "my friend took my ticket last minute under my name, but when I heard the plane exploded, i decided to duck out and start a new life because not only am i a con man, I was in big trouble for illegal abortions too" doesn't make for a convincing story. Taylor? Although sabotage was suspected, no definite cause of the crash was determined . Probably one of the most intriguing cases Ive read here, what a great write up OP! For weeks Dr Spears was mourned along with the rest of the victims. She was an unflappable woman in her late fifties, with a fondness for ostentatious feathered hats, pearl necklaces, and large brooches. BITTERN searched separate areas using Navy sonar. A considerable amount of the floating debris also exhibited signs of burning but only above waterlines. Current weather reports and forecasts showed both destination and alternates to be and to remain above the approved minimums. This is the last known radio contact with Flight967. Mrs Taylor? . National Airlines Flight 967 of November 15, 1959, was scheduled between Miami, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana, with a stop at Tampa, Florida. The man was a con artist. Taylor, investigators discovered, was wanted in Washington DC and Philadephlia under a variety of assumed names at the time of his disappearance. But where had he been? She had never liked Spears. After he left, he phoned again three times, again asking for Junior. National Airlines Flight 967, registration N4891C, was a Douglas DC-7B aircraft that disappeared over the Gulf of Mexico en route from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 16, 1959. February 1, 1960 LINK. Logan says Taylors ex-wife was media-savvy--and points out that she had a potential financial motive to portray Taylor as an unwitting passenger on that flight. Everyone loved the read as the comments here suggest and so did I but does anyone have a theory they favor? 46 people perished. Subsequent investigation has failed to reveal the use of any marine signal flash or pyrotechnic, which might have had a somewhat similar appearance, at the time and place. Three days before the crash, (the day Spears had arrived in Tampa) Taylor and Spears were seen together enjoying a lavish meal in the Hillsboro Hotel. [] for all those decades and all the different things they got up to. It had his signature on it. Otherwise, the loading of the aircraft was normal with the center of gravity located within prescribed limits and the gross weight some 11,000pounds under maximum permissible for takeoff. Post-mortem examinations of the nine bodies, all of which were identified by fingerprints, indicated that all had received traumatic injuries. - January 14, 1951, a DC-4 crashed on landing at Philadelphia Airport with 7 fatalities. He was charged with three felony accounts and was set to stand trial in Los Angeles on December 3, 1959. They even raise the possibility that the two con-men may have been plotting something together. This consisted of fragmented bits of upholstery, soundproofing material, cabin linings, scat cushions and backs, metallic parts of seats attached to and buoyed by these cushions and backs, overhead racks and other light items not essential to the structural integrity of the aircraft. Tampa Police Detective John C. Daniels was among those who did not buy the hypnosis theory: Taylor was in debt over his head. The agent's attention was drawn elsewhere, however, and he never noticed if the man boarded the flight or not. Rescuers went out in aircraft and boats, arriving before dawn and still combing the cold, rough seas as the sun came up. Nothing. * Douglas DC-8-21/31/32/51/54/61 He moved to California and took up hypnotism, his business was with a doctor performing abortions (which were then illegal in the U.S.). Coast Guard and civil surface craft immediately searched the area exhaustively and retrieved everything sighted. Flight status, tracking, and historical data for National Aeronautics and Space Administration 967 (NASA967) 01-Mar-2023 (KEFD-KVCT) including scheduled, estimated, and actual departure and arrival times. After forging several checks, he had skipped town and completely abandoned his first family. Length approx. Spears disappeared after the accident but was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, with Taylor's car in January, 1960. Spears said Taylor was going to fly to Dallas and that he would drive the car, but flight 967 was going to New Orleans not Dallas? Mrs Spears said that when he came to see her, Spears was sad about Taylors death. You received a Purple Heart on or after September 11, 2001, and were honorably discharged after any amount of service, or. Or was it all a freak accident? . Personally I suspect that Logan has at least partially fallen prey to the charms of Dr Spears--I highly doubt Taylor is living it up in South America--but his questions are interesting ones. 102 - Wikipedia The media, of course, went straight to Dr Spearss wife. Crew qualifications and experience were amply high in all respects and an investigation disclosed no irregularity in this connection. National Airlines Flight 967 of November 15, 1959, was scheduled between Miami, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana, with a stop at Tampa, Florida. Conditions of Employment: FAA Class 1 Medical required at time of Flight . The National crew consisted of Captain Frank Eugene Todd, Copilot Dick Sheridan Beebee, Flight Engineer George Henry Clark, Jr., Stewardesses Patricia Ann Hires and Donna Jean Osburn, and additional crew member Jack Atkinson of the Federal Aviation Agency. Explosive decompression makes a plane crash look like the plane was blown up with a large bomb, but minus any larger pieces of wreckage as well as explosive residue proving it. National Airlines Flight 967, registration N4891C, was a Douglas DC7B aircraft that disappeared over the Gulf of Mexico en route from Tampa, Florida to New Orleans, Louisiana on November 16, 1959. FBI Records: The Vault National Airlines Flight 967 Part 01 A Delta Airlines DC-7, similar to the accident aircraft, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, introducing citations to additional sources, Learn how and when to remove this template message, List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft, Robert Spears, 1959 bomb suspect, dies in Dallas, Civil Aeronautics Board Aircraft Accident Report on Flight 967, Clear Lake crash ("The Day the Music Died"), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Airlines_Flight_967&oldid=1123344434, Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-7, Airliner accidents and incidents in the United States, Aviation accidents and incidents in the Atlantic Ocean, Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1959, National Airlines (19341980) accidents and incidents, Unsolved mass murders in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from September 2021, All articles needing additional references, Articles lacking in-text citations from September 2021, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, In-flight explosion (Bombing suspected, but not proven), This page was last edited on 23 November 2022, at 06:57. Track American Airlines (AA) #967 flight from Austin-Bergstrom Intl to Dallas-Fort Worth Intl. The theory arose that Spears, desperate to avoid trial and wanting a fresh start, had tricked Taylor (perhaps through hypnosis)[1] into boarding the aircraft with a piece of luggage containing a bomb; when the aircraft crashed, it would be assumed that Spears was on board. Letters between the two men, which Mrs Taylor believed to be evidence of a skilful manipulation by Dr Spears, could also simply indicate a strong friendship. The FBI had found Dr Spears through an ex-wife of Spearss associate Mr Turska. I believe him lost in the crash.". Back then, you could get on a plane, put something in the luggage rack, and then right before take off say "Excuse me, is this the plane to Dallas? The industry standard flight tracking platform for business aviation (BA) owners and operators. 2913'N. Join to view profile. It appeared that the oil was rising from the northernmost point of this oil slick. A B D Yes, they help protect natural wonders No, the National Park Service is a waste of federal funding Yes, national parks provided recreational activities and environmental education No, national parks should return the land to indigenous Americans The evening started as any other at an airport terminal as 105 were set board their National Flight 601 from New York bound for Miami on a Boeing 707. Because of the lack of physical evidence, the probable cause of this accident is unknown. We know he was at the airport that night, at 12:16 am. This website uses cookies. National Airlines Flight 967 Wiki - everipedia.org