[or-roots] Portland plane crash

Penny penny.malmquist at acsalaska.net
Sat Apr 3 12:18:39 PST 2004


Does anyone want to know more about the plane crash of 1978.  I worked
in the Sheriff's Office at the time and responded to the plane crash.
My husband also worked for the fire district that responded at the time.
The accounting of 10 people died in the plane crash is accurate.  I am
not sure about the 23 seriously injured.  Most people walked off the
plane and thought they landed at the airport.  The tail of the plane
caught the electricity wires as it went across Burnside and that is what
stopped it.  It hit two houses both vacant at the time.  The nose of the
plane hit a tree and that is what killed the victims.  The plane could
not determine whether its landing gear was down and so as a last pass to
the airport the pilot dumped some fuel and then ran out of gas.  The
fire chief of the district happened to find it on his way to the airport
because there was a power outage on Burnside and he saw the tail of the
plane.  Because of this crash, the Ambulance response system was set up
in Portland so that there would always be a response within 3-5 minutes
and a move up system was put into place and we wiped out the whole metro
area of ambulances that night and most did not transport anyone.

Penny Malmquist

-----Original Message-----
From: or-roots-admin at sosinet.sos.state.or.us
[mailto:or-roots-admin at sosinet.sos.state.or.us] On Behalf Of Leslie
Chapman
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 6:03 PM
To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us
Subject: [or-roots] Portland plane crash

Tsk, Tsk you forgot to change subject line and almost got ignored.

I don't know about phone service, I think town may have had phone not
long
after 1900, Connie??

As to the plane crash, I remember it because my late nephews and their
wife/mom were about ten blocks from it when it went down. I find a
reference
to a UAL crash on 12/28/1978 but don't think that is the one as
elsewhere
saw reference to it being a crash on takeoff which the one you refer to
wasn't.

Okay after three hours of searching I finally typed in "ran out of fuel"
and
found it in thirty seconds;

On December 28, 1978. a DC-8 ran out of fuel at Portland, Oregon.
    The flight originated from J. F. Kennedy Airport, New York, via
Denver

At 18.15 the DC-8 crashed into a wooded section of suburban Portland,
six
miles east-south-east of the airport. Fortunately it did not catch fire.
The
flight engineer, a flight attendant and eight passengers were killed.
Twenty-three other passengers were seriously injured. The fault in the
undercarriage was found to be due to a burned-out light bulb.

for full text of cockpit conversation in this "stupidity crash" see;

http://www.najaco.com/books/aviationchorus/accidents_3.htm

I'll try to get back to you on the phone thing.

Les Chapman

-----Original Message-----
From:  Eugene Barnes
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 3:51 PM

Hi:

Does any one know when the area of Bayview/Waldport first had Telepones
and Electrice lighting?

Also does any one from the Portland area recall hearing about an
airplane
that
crashed near Bybie (sp) Street in Porland, circa 197-22 or thereabouts?
My
Grandmother who lived our on 68th Ave S.E. spoke of it and I beleive she
had
a piece of the rubberized fabric from that aircraft.

Gene Barnes
Costa Mesa, CA
http://sosinet.sos.state.or.us/mailman/listinfo/or-roots
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