Bolling AFB | Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives

The crew was completing a local training flight at Bolling AFB when the aircraft crashed in unknown circumstances south of the airbase. A crew member was killed and the second was injured.

Crash of a Curtiss Eagle in Morgantown: 7 killed

Date & Time: May 28, 1921

Type of aircraft:

Curtiss Eagle

Operator:

Registration:

AS-64243

Flight Phase:

Flight

Flight Type:

Ambulance

Survivors:

Site:

Plain, Valley

Schedule:

Langley – Bolling

Location:

Morgantown

Maryland

Country:

United States of America

Region:

North America

Crew on board:

Crew fatalities:

Pax on board:

Pax fatalities:

Other fatalities:

Total fatalities:

Circumstances:

The ambulance airplane of the 1st Provisional Air Brigade, crashed during a severe thunderstorm attempting to land at Morgantown, Maryland, while returning to Bolling Field, District of Columbia, from Langley Field, Virginia. The pilot, 1st Lt. Stanley M. Ames, and six passengers were killed. Four of the six were Air Service officers and an enlisted man. Two United States congressmen had chosen not to make the flight because of airsickness on the flight from Washington to Langley.

Probable cause:

The Army's Inspector General conducted an investigation of the crash and theorized that the aircraft stalled when it encountered an updraft at low altitude while trying to clear trees near the unfamiliar field and fell vertically, nose first, into the ground.