Clarksburg, MD Airplane Crash, Jun 1957



Clarksburg, Md. (AP) - A Capital Airlines plane on a training flight crashed today into the back yard of a rural bungalow here. The three men aboard were killed but the homeowner dodged the falling craft by running "in crazy circles."
The twin-engine DC3 fell in the yard of the home of Mr. and Mrs. John A. Anderson, coming to rest only 15 feet from the back porch of their home.
The cause of the crash was not determined immediately.
Clarksburg is a small community about midway between Frederick, Md., and Washington, D.C.
A young daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Otis Norwood, a next door neighbor of the Anderson's, also saw the plane roaring downward and ran into the house screaming,
"Mother, a plane is after me."
The child was still hysterical two hours after the crash.
Anderson was in the back yard at the time of the crash and said he went "in crazy circles" in an effort to dodge the plummeting plane.
His wife and three children - Wayne, 9; Larry, 5, and Sharon, 2 - were in the house when the plane hit and were not hurt.
Some oil from the plane splattered on the house but the home was not damaged. Eyewitnesses said there was no fire.
The wreckage smashed squarely on one of Anderson's cars and also damaged another car. Anderson said he finally dodged behind the second car when the plane hit.
Anderson said he first noticed the plane diving quite steeply toward his back yard with its motors "at what seemed to be as idle."
"When it got close," he said, "and I thought it was going to hit, the pilot pushed on the power, the motors roared up, and the plane did a complete loop."
"At the top of the loop it started to stagger again and then came down in spirals."
Capital Airlines said the three employees killed in the crash were CAPT. C. R. BURKE of (318 Spring Lake Ter.) Fairfax, Va.; R. K. THOMAS, Chicago, and H. A. PODGURSKI, Pittsburgh (local addresses not available).

The Index-Journal Greenwood South Carolina 1957-06-22


I saw this plane go down.

I was about 5 years old. We lived just off rt 355 very near the site where the plane went down I was playing in our back yard and saw this plane going down. I told my father but he didn't believe me and said that planes don't go down in a nose dive like I describe but I know what I saw. The engine was sputtering and that is what drew my attention to the plane and then the plane nose dived. My father visited the site and said what a horrible seen it was but would never believe that I saw it going down.