“Southeast Airlines officially announces that Flight 308 of January 8, operating a normal schedule in terminate at Tri-Cities from Memphis at 7:58 p.m., is overdue
BACKGROUND
According to news reports, the wreckage was identified around noon January 9th, 1959, by a Tennessee Air National Guard pilot. A ground rescue team which was standing by at the Camp Tom Howard (a boy scout camp located at the base of the mountain) was dispatched to the scene. The weather was biting cold and there was winter snow on the ground; and the area of the crash site was in rough steep terrain. It must have been a physically and mentally draining climb up Holston Mountain for the rescue team. They found mangled wreckage that had been burned after the crash on the slope of a steep spur, and they found no survivors.
Early on in my exploration on Holston I stumbled upon a geocache and while I have never taken up the hobby, I was interested enough to check the cache list for Holston Mountain. One of those sites included a marker for flight 308. The wooden marker, which has degraded over time, sits at the base of one of most beautiful waterfalls on the mountain. It is worth the trip even if one must push through dense laurel along the way. Unfortunately, it became apparent to me as I researched the data related to the crash that the marked site was most likely not near the actual crash site. I was first alerted to this by a commenter on the geocache page who claimed to have found the site roughly 10 miles away. Then I read the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) accident report which stated that the plane crashed 18.75 nautical miles (n.m.) east of Tri-Cities airport. The geocache site was short of that mileage and significantly so.
As I read additional reports of the crash which often contained conflicting and questionable information, I quickly came to the conclusion that locating the actual crash site—unless I found someone who just knew—would be difficult. The main issue was the geocache site which had misled most people for decades. In light of those difficulties, I rather contentedly put the question aside for other mountain adventures.
THE NEED TO KNOW
There often comes a moment in one’s happy ignorant existence when one suddenly has to know. That moment for me, with respect to Flight 308, was meeting Olga Davis. Olga is the granddaughter of Alvin Bradley, a Kingsport accountant who died on Flight 308. I met Olga on a group hike and remember a short conversation in which we talked about the mountain. The conversation was pleasant and I sensed that she loved the mountain as I did but I didn’t give it much thought afterward.
What I did give thought to some time later, after that first meeting, is that Olga was asking questions about Flight 308, and that she had revealed that her grandfather had died on the flight. And, then someone did what I had purposefully avoided doing—they gave her the coordinates of the Flight 308 marker. And she was very happy to get them. Nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but I knew those coordinates, that location, were false. There was another thing that I knew immediately and that was that I had to reveal my knowledge that the marker was misplaced. I also knew that in doing so, a short glimmer of hope would be dashed. And then I knew that I could not remain in my comfortable ignorant existence. The whole thing needed to be known. Olga needed to know. I, the bearer of bad news, needed to know and not merely because I was the bearer of bad news. The mountain wanted to speak, and we needed to get busy listening!
GETTING STARTED
I first initiated a few queries, one to Larry Jarrett, the Roan Mountain Jedi. Larry knows these northeast Tennessee hills like no other—if anyone had researched and found the site it would likely be him! Then, I sent messages to anyone I could find who had ever commented or written about the crash. Few responded but I did hear from Larry. It turned out that he had researched all of the plane crashes on Holston but had not located the DC-3 of Flight 308. He agreed with me though that the marker location was most likely wrong. Over the next few weeks, Larry did parallel online searches and served to validate many of my conclusions regarding the available info. Unfortunately, much of that info was to be considered unreliable.
The issue was that the data was literally all over the map. One morning I sat in the Hickory Tree store and talked to two individuals who were young men at the time of the crash, both having memories of where the crash was. If I had talked to one or the other of them in isolation, I would have considered that one to be totally reliable. The problem was that they pointed to two totally different locations. Then, there were multiple online summaries and reports that tended to agree on virtually nothing—except that there was a mysterious light that shone from the crash site with no explanation. This I considered to be an unwanted distraction—a canard that kept getting in the way of every writer’s attention to the important details—one in particular: where exactly was the crash?
One thing that should be reliable was the CAB report and it included some important details. First, was the distance east of the crash from the airport: 18.75 miles. Second, was the elevation of the of the initial impact on the mountain: 3140 ft. as it cleared the “ridge.” Third, was the direction of impact at roughly 235 degrees, 10 degrees off perpendicular from the “ridge.” That second thing seemed problematic since it would indicate that the plane flying east toward the mountain cleared the ridge and crashed on the southeast side; and there is one article that claimed that part of the plane did end up on the southeast side. But, the report clearly stated that the plane came to rest on the northwest side. Also, there were multiple sources that stated that the plane crashed 300 ft below the mountain ridge. The issue is that there are very few places on the mountain where 3140 ft. would be 300 ft. below the ridge—the ridge being generally taller than that. Then there was the problematic 18.75 nautical miles. That distance matched almost nowhere on the mountain that fit the other data of the crash; and for the few pointes where it did, the ridge was much higher, approaching 4000 ft. Something clearly seemed off. I concluded that the most likely thing in error was the 18.75 n.m.
BREAKTHROUGH
The first breakthrough came when Larry and I, after rereading the accident report, came to the same conclusion: the ridge in question must not be the main ridge of the mountain. To understand this, one needs to understand the events that led to the crash.
(ATP/ Clint Groves Collection). Photo courtesy of Mike Jones.
The plane inbound from Nashville was by all evidence flying with an inoperative radio compass. This meant that the pilots were susceptible to inaccuracies in establishing position due to the shifting winds on the snowy winter evening. The CAB concluded that the plane likely came into the Tri-Cities area roughly two miles off course. This is not a problem in of itself. The procedure for approaching the airport included the restriction to not descend below 5000 ft. prior to being cleared for landing. Since Holston mountain, the tallest in the region, tops at approx. 4300 ft; this restriction ensured safety. Only after a radio beacon just south of the airport in Gray was successfully identified could the aircraft be cleared to land. The CAB found two pilot errors and the first was the misidentification of the Gray beacon. Apparently, another beacon was confused with the Gray resulting in an approach two miles east of the airport—and two miles closer to the mountain.
After reporting successful identification of Gray, the aircraft was cleared to lower altitude and commence the approach procedure. That procedure required the aircraft to turn toward the mountain in a mostly eastern direction. Once that turn was executed another radio beacon, referred to as the “outer marker,” would be located; after which a procedure turn back toward the airport in line with the runway was to be executed. In the event that the outer marker was not identified, a radius of five miles beyond the marker was identified. Aircraft were not permitted beyond this marker due to the danger of the mountain ahead. The CAB cited a second pilot error for the decision to proceed beyond this marker.
The apparent problem was that in the pilot’s mind, he had successfully identified Gray on approach to the Tri-Cities; but because he was actually two miles east, he also missed the outer marker to initiate the landing approach. The second mistake was critical. Even by the pilot’s own reckoning, he must have exceeded the five-mile radius. He chose to continue flying while the controller communicated with a Piedmont aircraft also in the vicinity. When the conversation resumed between the controller and Flight 308, the pilot asked if the outer marker (beacon) was operative and was told “yes.” The pilot then responded that he was initiating the procedure turn back to the airport. The controller now realizing the danger for the first time asked the pilot for his altitude. No response came. The presumption was that he crashed into the mountain while executing the turn.
What all of this means is that the aircraft was not flying directly toward the mountain when it crashed. It was mid-turn back to the airport and therefore most probably crashed into one of the many spurs that head more-or-less perpendicularly off the mountain. “It was a finger ridge.” Larry responded as we were messaging back and forth. “Yes,” I responded, “who knows what the altitude is on the main ridge at that point. It is inconsequential and the CAB report never states it.”
THE PLAN
Armed with this new realization, I began to map out possible crash sites based on all the relevant information. I identified three sites:
- pSite1 was located on a ridge not far from Hwy 421 as it crosses over the mountain from Bristol to Shady Valley. This is the great divide of the main Holston Mountain ridge as it runs northwest for twenty miles from Elizabethton, TN to Damascus, VA. This site was prioritized first on the strength of local testimony that the crash site was visible from 421. One ridge in that area fit most of the CAB report data and had the bonus of being roughly 300 ft. from the main ridge. The one data it did not fit was 18.75 n.m. east of Tri-Cities airport. But based on the conflicting nature of the various reports we were dealing with; we were willing to grant a mistake in the CAB report, as unlikely as that might be.
- pSite2 was located behind a point on the mountain well known to many—the Double Springs shelter of the Appalachian Trail. This site was favored on account of its remoteness and consistency of mention in various recollections. It also had the potential to correlate an apparent inconsistency. Although the mountain tops out over 4000’ in that area there is a relatively flat “bench” (level plateau) behind it as low as 3500’. If the crash occurred on a finger ridge below that bench, the various reports of it crashing 300’ below the “ridge” could make sense in relation to the bench.
- pSite3 was located near FishDam creek. The site was suggested by no one we interviewed and no report we read. Its only advantage was that it could be said to have ridges that could support an impact site that agree on all data points in the CAB report—even the 18.75 n.m.
Having identified the possibilities, the search was on! In Larry’s words “The ole Holston boys are gonna solve this thing!”
THE SEARCH
On a cold rainy Monday morning in early March, six members of the Holston Mountain Hiking club went to pSite1 with optimistic spirits. After a half mile hike in from the Snake Spur Rd. access on 421 we broke into three teams. Missy Ensor and Crystal Lingerfelt, frequent hiking companions, began searching the upper ridge; Wes Morrell and Jarrod Sammons, legendary extreme camping enthusiasts, took a lower path below the ridge; and my daughter Anna and I beelined out to the far point on the ridge to work back toward Missy and Crystal. There was some snow on the ground but not enough to seriously impede the search. I did send Anna 200 ft. down a hill once, though, to check out what might be a shiny object—which turned out to be . . . a snowy log.
Anna and I did find some interesting metal that turned out to be an old still site (common on Holston) but other than that nothing interesting was found—except tree damage reported by Wes and Jarrod. When asked if they documented it and took photos, they rather weakly said “no.” All jesting included, the only thing that saved their participation on our expert search team that day was that Jarrod was our photographer! Sum of the day was that though we could not rule out pSite1, we had sufficiently searched it to move on. I was still optimistic, but I knew that pSite2 would present search challenges (scope and difficulty) not experienced at pSite1. We had certainly moved to a more difficult stage.
Two days later I was on the mountain again, this time solo. It was a warm sunny day and there were three goals. First to investigate the tree damage at pSite1, then to take the Snake Spur Rd. all the way to the Snake Spur and down to the crash elevation. Like pSite1, the larger Snake Spur can easily be seen from 421. And last, to reverse course and climb up the mountain to Double Springs shelter along the edges of pSite2 to scout the terrain and begin to formulate a search plan. It would be a reconnaissance mission with no expectation of finding the plane.
I was able to find the damaged trees at the top of the ridge at pSite1 and agreed with Wes and Jarrod that they were suggestive but far from conclusive. I also found a burned-out tree at a location that would fit the data for the impact site. It was not in line with the damaged trees though, and therefore had to stand on its own. I searched around the tree and found no debris. After documenting those items, I proceeded down the forest road and up the adjoining trail to the ridge of the Short Spur. I found a good trail at the top of the ridge all the way down to about 3250’ and then it got rough. By the time I made it to 3140’ the vegetation was extremely dense and there were cliffs on all sides. Other than using my monocular on a couple of sight lines I did no searching. I concluded that this site would only be searched when others had been eliminated. Then, I reversed course and went up toward Double Springs. There is an area up high there where the flora is interesting even in winter. I moved quickly when not surveying plants and reached the summit in early afternoon. Along the way I noted the terrain of pSite2 as navigable, at least on the eastern side.
A NEW DEVELOPMENT
It is a short drop over the ridge to the Double Spring shelter where I planned to take a quick rest before completing my loop along the Appalachian Trail back to the Snake Spur Rd. access. In the short ten minutes I planned to tarry, a significant development in the search occurred and it came in the person of Ed “Hurricane” Speer. Ed Speer is a member of the hiking club which has ownership of trail maintenance along the AT for the length it runs in Tennessee. He was wearing an orange vest and packing a saw and cheerfully offered upon his approach that “you [I] must be the most intelligent person on the trail. That is a perfect spot in the sun to rest.” I told him that “I wouldn’t argue with that.” Hurricane and I conversed for a good fifteen minutes sharing our knowledge of the mountain and describing our hiking interests. Initially reserved, I began to progressively explain to him my off-trail route that day until I eventually revealed my purpose—the crash reconnaissance trip.
It turned out the Hurricane had spent not a short amount of time investigating all the crashes on the mountain and had some relatively new information about Flight 308. A certain Darryl Brinkley had told him that he visited the site shortly after the crash and had pinpointed to Hurricane one of the ridges in what was our pSite3 area. The information was first hand and specific; and though I had already learned a lesson or two in this search with the reliability of first hand witnesses, I was immediately fascinated that I was now for the first time hearing someone point to the location that had the best correlation to the CAB report! All that required to make that the next search area was to upgrade it above pSite2—and in my mind I had already done that.
A SIGNIFICANT RESERVATION
The next day I was organizing a second reconnaissance trip to pSite3. Due to the remoteness of the particular ridge in question we discussed briefly an overnight search trip but then decided on an initial day outing using the shorter harder direct route with a small team. Assuming we made it, we would briefly survey the terrain looking toward a follow-up overnight outing. Jarrod and Wes would be joining me the following Monday. It would be a long wait because it felt like we were zeroing in. There were only a few ridges in the pSite3 area that fit the profile. I began to consider that “We might actually find this thing!” One thing was bugging me though and that was the date of Dec. 31st.
On Dec 31st at the start of the latest winter season, Wes and I had walked into the pSite3 area along the railroad grade laid in the 1890s by Andy Smalling’s lumber company. Most people don’t recognize that railroad grade, as it heads toward Fishdam Basin, for what it is because the lumber company pulled it all out when it left. Even the trestle bridges were made from the huge logs harvested from the virgin forest, so they were disassembled and taken out as well. Nothing is left of them now except the gaps in the grade where the bridges once stood. There was biting cold wind that day so we did not spend as much time as we would like up on the rock ledge, which was blasted in the cliff to make way for the train. One can survey the large Holston Valley from there including the lake and the Clinch mountains in the distance. It was on the way back that Wes caught a glimpse of something, and that something turned out to be the landing gear of a small plane.
When we posted our photos later that day, multiple people immediately identified the gear as belonging to a Piper Cub. I looked over online photos of Piper Cubs and agreed, and so did Wes. The issue was that we have found no record of a Piper Cub accident in that area and when I mentioned it to Hurricane he had not either. It was a mystery.
Early in the evening the day after my meeting with Hurricane on the trail, Jarrod asked me a question: “have you tried to overlay the best guess flight path from the CAB report over a topo because I just did it and it is interesting!” I had to admit that I hadn’t done that. Until recently I had thought that the 18.75 nautical miles was off, and even now for the ridge in question it was a little off. So, I imported the diagram and made it transparent over the 2013 USFS topo map. Then, I aligned the Tri-Cities airport waypoint and adjusted the distances according the scale on the diagram. It was way off—what was Jarrod thinking? I re-checked the waypoints and everything was right. I was about to message Jarrod and demand his map when on intuition I checked the diagram scale against a measurement on the diagram itself. It was off! One more adjustment to align the topo with the measurements on the diagram and BOOM!
Right above Fishdam Basin! Essentially pSite3 but across the basin from our target ridge. Maybe the 18.75 miles was right after all—but, then, the elevation was off because we were above the bench.
There are often small errors in every step. It was probable that I didn’t have the airport runway aligned exactly. It was very probable that I didn’t have the two maps perfectly aligned. And, the right side of the diagram, which was scanned, was obviously curved. There was certainly enough error there to warrant lowering the elevation. If I did that it, which was not a large adjustment due to the steepness just below the bench; then it was eerily close, if not right on top of . . . the Piper Cub.
I rechecked our photos against Piper Cub landing gear and it still seemed to match. I messaged Wes and asked his opinion. We agreed, it was too close not to be a match—and the DC3 is way bigger. Nonetheless, it was disturbing. An unknown aircraft in the best guess vicinity of a missing aircraft.
A BLAST FROM THE PAST
I was already considering changing the destination of the upcoming search on Monday to the ridge on the other side of the basin when I got the message from Ellen Jones.
It turns out that Olga Davis, the granddaughter that launched us into the great search, had remembered a Facebook Group discussion from the previous year—the 60th anniversary of the crash, and had returned there to ask if anyone had information. Ellen Jones had replied, “Yes, my husband found the site in 2012.” Shortly after replying to Ellen I was on the phone with Mike Jones. Mike’s father had flown for Southeast at the same time as the crash and had known the pilot of our plane. At some point his interest compelled him to research the information and conduct a ground search for the plane. When Mike was researching the crash the name Claude Pickle came up. Claude had helped lead the rescue crew to the site and Mike was able to gain Claude’s recollection of the location. Mike searched the area thoroughly and almost didn’t find it. He told me that he was missing it because he was searching above the site in the bench closer to the ridge. But as he was making his way down the mountain, he stopped near the RR grade to rest, and as he rested . . . he saw the DC-3 landing gear! Mike was looking too high not realizing that the crash was in proximity to the bench and not the main ridge. But he found it anyway!
Okay, I told Mike. Tell me where it is! So, Mike descriptively walked me up the mountain toward the location and eventually, amazingly, right to my Piper Cub. “Mike, are you sure you found a DC-3 and not a Piper Cub?” He laughed and replied, “Those are two completely different planes!” It turns that Wes and I had misidentified the landing gear frame, to which the DC-3 landing gear wheel assemblies attached, for landing gear itself. Mike sent me photos of his find which included the exact parts that Wes had spotted and then the larger DC-3 wheel assemblies. Undeniable! After some additional searches online, I determined that the DC-3 part that we found, and the Piper Cub landing gear were almost identical in size and shape. That is when I messaged Wes a photo of the DC-3 wheel assembly from Mike and this: “I found a source. We know where it is.” Wes messaged back “Oh wow! Did you get coordinates?” I replied “Don’t need them, going back with the guy that found it. And do you want to know the amazing thing?” I asked. “Yes, Of course!” “This is the amazing thing.” I said. “It was you. You found it.”
RESOLUTION
Mike was gracious and met me the next day and handed over to me all of his information. He had written an excellent article on Southeast Airlines, its short four-year operation in the Tri-Cities, and the crash itself. Unbeknownst to almost anyone, he had solved the mystery in 2012. He sent his information to the local paper and then it was forgotten. In my mind, Mike did a wonderful work. Why it got lost and might have never been found again is almost beyond my imagination.
Two days later, on Monday March 9th, 2020, seven years after Mike solved the mystery. Wes, Jarrod, Hurricane and I headed up to the mountain with great anticipation of documenting the site. We had a special guest with us, Olga Davis. We took the hard way straight up the mountain, partially because I had an inkling that line might be the way the searchers had gone in. We reached the railroad grade and I pointed out the terrain and described to the team where we might expect to find the landing gear and possibly even the crash impact point. It was about lunch time but Olga had no mind for that as she took a bee line toward the possible impact site. I took a route up the hollow and found the first wheel assembly almost immediately. I now knew that we would have a successful day.
After photographing and documenting the gear, I headed up the hill toward the crest. My intent was to find the elevation of first contact on the ridge and then hopefully identify tree damage and establish a path. Then, we should be able to follow that path until we found the impact site. About three-quarters way up the hill I found Olga sitting below a double tree with both trunks sheared at about 70 feet. She was finishing her lunch and had just noticed a piece of glass. Due to the steepness of the hill, it took me another five to ten minutes to reach her spot. During that time she found melted metal and other parts. When I reached the spot, we found it was covered with debris; some of it still on top of the ground. The ground was discolored, we assume from the effects of the fire.
The most interesting find was a radio tube from the navigation radio. Several of the tubes were missing when the wreckage was found after the crash and it was assumed that artifact hunters had removed them prior to the search party reaching the site. That assumption now seems to be in error. Obviously, they were dislodged during the crash and some 61 years later one of them was found!
After documenting the crash site, the team assembled at the railroad grade for a wrap-up video. Several of us had already broken out our “champagne.” For Jarrod that was his energy drink. For me, it was freshly brewed coffee. For Olga, it was tea. As I was listing the major finds for the video, I reached the the most significant one: the crash impact point. I noted that it was found by Olga. I could only think of one word: fitting.
In memory of those who perished on Flight 308, Jan. 8 1959.
Copyright 2020 Anthony Dean Walker.
Trail 57 