ASN Aircraft accident Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar 52-5894 Huntingdon, TN
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Status:
Date:Friday 26 February 1954
Type:Silhouette image of generic C119 model; specific model in this crash may look slightly different
Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar
Operator:United States Air Force - USAF
Registration: 52-5894
MSN: 11061
First flight:
Crew:Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 4
Passengers:Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0
Total:Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 4
Aircraft damage: Damaged beyond repair
Location:Huntingdon, TN (   United States of America)
Phase: Maneuvering (MNV)
Nature:Military
Departure airport:Fort Benning-Lawson AFB, GA (LSF/KLSF), United States of America
Destination airport:Fort Benning-Lawson AFB, GA (LSF/KLSF), United States of America
Narrative:
A C-119 transport plane took off from Lawson Air Force Base (LSF) on what was to be a six hour training flight. Aboard were an Air Force lieutenant in command as pilot, and a crew consisting of a co-pilot and two flight engineers. The pilot and crew had been instructed as to the specific training exercises which were to be performed: short field landings and takeoffs at Lawson, instrument approaches eighty-two miles away at Maxwell Air Force Base, near Montgomery, Alabama, and visual approaches at Columbus, Georgia. The entire flight was to be confined to the "local flying area," an area precisely delimited by Air Force regulations, with an average radius from Lawson Air Force Base of about ninety miles.
After only one practice landing at Lawson, however, the plane left the "local flying area" and flew more than three hundred miles to Huntingdon, Tennessee, the pilot's home town. Since World War II it has been a tradition for pilots from Huntingdon to buzz the courthouse when they were in the area.
Upon arriving over Huntingdon the plane made two passes over the courthouse at a very low altitude and at an accelerated speed. On the second pass the plane clipped the top of a house, disintegrated and crashed, and all aboard were killed. Burning gasoline from the plane injured two men who were working in a nearby field.

Sources:
» Ellensburg Daily Record - Feb 27, 1954
» 236 F.2d 649; UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. TAYLOR, DEMOSS, Appellees


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This information is not presented as the Flight Safety Foundation or the Aviation Safety Network’s opinion as to the cause of the accident. It is preliminary and is based on the facts as they are known at this time.
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