Talk:Southern Airways Flight 242

Accident site

There is some confusion regarding the accident site. The NTSB calls the site: "State Spur Highway 92 bisecting New Hope, Georgia", and the accident site is "New Hope, GA" for short in all accident summaries. The NTSB supplies the site coordinates of 33°57'45"N, 84°47'13"W, and depicts it on an aviation Sectional chart of the era in the report appendix, at a location that roughly corresponds to the specified coords (crudely hand drawn).

The main problem is the town name "New Hope". As of 2006, the closest town in GA by that name, per Googlemaps, is 150 miles to the east, incorporated into Lincolnton, GA. OTOH, state highway 92 is (currently) a rural road that merges with current state highway 381 that seems to have a nice straight section that could serve for an emergency landing and matches with the given coords. The straight section extends to the NE from the final eastward path of the flight, as reconstructed from radar and depicted on the Sectional chart. The merge point of current (2006) route 92 seems to be somewhat northeast of that location, on state highway 381.

Per Google and WP, "New Hope" is also the name of an old antebellum church, apparently not far from Dallas, GA, where the famous Battle of New Hope Church was fought, so possibly there was some locality by that name near that site in 1977. Perhaps someone local or with more specific info can shed light on this issue. Thanks, Crum375 17:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I was 10 years old at the time. The community was New Hope. I lived in Hiram …within 10 miles of the crash site. We watched helicopters go overhead for days. My father was in the local rescue squad and worked the accident. He has never talked about it much. Seven of the nine people killed on the ground were my brother in laws cousins. Three moms and their four kids. They had stopped at the gas station for gas and ice cream and had just gotten back in the car to leave when the plane hit. My brother in laws Aunt lost her two daughters, daughter in law and all her grandkids in that moment. It was so incredibly sad. 2600:6C5E:647F:E5AA:F875:BA02:5E53:BA24 (talk) 19:41, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Doing some more research, it seems in fact there is or was a small community (30 families in 1997?) called "New Hope" just northeast of Dallas, GA, apparently right at the accident site. Highway 92 has been relocated several times in recent years and Hwy 381 has been officially 'retired' (but still shown on GoogleMaps) and renamed 'Dallas-Acworth Highway'. Here are some sources: [1][2] I'll return the "New Hope" as accident site once I can find it mentioned anywhere else, unrelated to the accident. Note again that GoogleMaps currently places "New Hope, GA" 150 miles east at Lincolnton. Crum375 22:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Reading [3] the mystery is over: clearly Hwy 92 as depicted in the old 60's maps is exactly where the presumed "straight section" was and still is, and "New Hope" appears on the enclosed maps from 1964 and 1968, matching the NTSB accident coords. The "92 Spur" terminology is also included. Now the issue is to include the old location name(s) followed by the new name(s). Crum375 22:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Some more info for the record. Per MapQuest, there are eight (8) different "New Hope, GA" towns in 8 different counties. The accident site is in Paulding County, here. So "New Hope", Paulding County, still exists in 2006. There is hope yet. Crum375 23:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to say you've done a great job editing and improving this article. Well done! - Itsfullofstars 18:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you - very much appreciated. Crum375 21:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

And thanks also for the copy-edit job. Crum375 21:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I can shed a little light on this subject, as I live less than a mile from the crash site. The mailing address here is, in fact, "Dallas, GA", however the plane actually crashed on a section of road that was then Georgia Highway 92. This area is referred to by long-time residents as the "New Hope Community". Paulding County even recognizes it with county maintained signs along Dallas-Acworth Highway that read "Welcome to the New Hope Community". As far as where the name came from, that I do not know. I do know that my house (and subdivision) was built on the site of the Civil War Battle (The Battle for New Hope Church). --Thebisch 21:04, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you live there when the plane crashed? I was 10…and lived within 10 miles of the crash. It is something I’ll never forget. 2600:6C5E:647F:E5AA:F875:BA02:5E53:BA24 (talk) 19:45, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Sources and counts

I've found plenty of ordinarily reliable secondary sources to expand this article ([4]) but they conflict as to the counts of passengers, survivors, and people killed on the ground. I'm hesitant to change this without some authoritative confirmation. - Dravecky (talk) 01:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

If you've got reliable sources to back up your information, be bold and make your changes! It looks like you're thinking of updating the statistics (survivors, etc). This page already has conflicting information (the infobox doesn't match the leading paragraphs). I'd say go ahead and change it! --Thebisch (talk) 13:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

That's my problem--the sources themselves conflict so I'm not sure which to believe. I'll do more research as time permits and see if I can come up with definitive numbers. - Dravecky (talk) 05:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Nine years later, the article reports 33 survived in the lead and then 20 survived in the body. Some guy (talk) 10:00, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Gas Station "Collision"

This article states: "They executed an unpowered forced landing on that road, but during the rollout the aircraft collided with a gas station/grocery store and other structures." In general, a collision is between two or more moving bodies, surprisingly even Wiki's own article on the subject agrees. Now, it seems mighty unlikely that the gas station in question was tooling down the Route 92 Spur, so perhaps "hit" might beat "collided with" in this instance. Jmdeur (talk) 20:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, WP is not a valid source. Your definition of "collision" as requiring both objects to be moving is novel, and WP:OR. Certainly Encyclopedia Britannica disagrees with you, unless you assume that EB authors play a different Golf game than most mortals. Crum375 (talk) 20:58, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

And just in case you don't trust EB, here is Merriam Webster's definition. Of course, you may say that the tree was moving in their case. Crum375 (talk) 21:05, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Image

The photo showed old Southern Airways livery, at the time of the accident they had changed their logo and colors. Check out these two pictures from airliners.net: N1335U in 1974 N1335U in 1975 Using the latter image I made an illustration of N1335U in the air prior to engine loss. Anynobody(?) 17:46, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Original Research

Most of the places in this article that are tagged as "needs citation" appear to be original research. They appear to represent conclusions of the person who wrote the statements. Regardless of how much expertise an editor has, and no matter whether these conclusions seem obvious, it's not encyclopedic to state them as fact. I think we should consider re-writing some of that, as there appears to be no discussion here concerning this issue. Dcs002 (talk) 03:56, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Cause: weather, radar, pilots, engines, all of the above?

Added the name of the engines - Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7A with its wiki link.-Yohananw (talk)