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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 several weeks later. ==Crash== The flight crew consisted of Captain Bill McKenzie, age 51, a highly experienced pilot with 19,380 flight hours, and co-pilot Lyman Keele, age 32, 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 depicted on their 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. As the aircraft descended from its cruise altitude of to near Rome VOR, it apparently entered a thunderstorm cell and encountered a massive amount of water and hail. The hail was intense enough to break the aircraft's windshield, and because of the ingestion of both water and hail, both engines were damaged and underwent flameout.〔 The crew attempted unsuccessfully to restart the engines, gliding down unpowered while simultaneously trying to find an emergency landing field within range. Air traffic control suggested Dobbins Air Force Base, about east, as a possible landing site but it was beyond reach. Cartersville Airport, a general aviation airport about north with a much shorter runway intended for light aircraft was considered, but it was behind the aircraft and now out of reach. Before the aircraft turned toward Dobbins, the closest airport was another general aviation airport, Cornelius Moore Airport (now Polk County Airport – Cornelius Moore Field), but the air traffic controllers did not know about it (it was just outside their area of responsibility) and it was not considered. As the aircraft ran out of altitude and options, gliding with a broken windshield and no engine power, the crew made visual contact with the ground and spotted a straight section of a rural highway below. They executed an unpowered forced landing on that road, but during the rollout the aircraft collided with a gas station/grocery store and other buildings. The flight crew and 60 passengers were killed by impact forces and fire, but 19 of the passengers survived as well as both flight attendants. Eight people on the ground died. One passenger initially survived the crash but died on June 5, 1977. A seriously injured person on the ground died around one month later. The NTSB defined their injuries as serious, as at the time the Code of Federal Regulations defined a fatal injury as one that results in death within seven days of the accident.〔 Among the fatally injured passengers was rhythm and blues singer Annette Snell. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Southern Airways Flight 242」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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