The Northern Neck-Middle Peninsula chapter of the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society will hold a program about a deadly commercial airline crash that took place in 1989 at its next monthly luncheon program at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 20, at the Pilot House Restaurant in Topping.
In February 1989, a commercial airline Boeing 707 crashed into the highest mountain peak in the Azores Mountain Range, killing 144 people on board. VAHS member Tom Duke, former Independent Air (Atlantia Skylarks) Boeing 707 Captain, will show a TV movie about the Azores Mountain crash.
Duke had flown the airplane involved into Bergamo, Italy, where the replacement crew departed with 144 people on board headed for the Dominican Republic with a fueling stop in Santa Maria Island in the Azores. It was the Captain’s first European flight in command and the First Officer’s 10th day flying the B-707.
The movie explains the circumstances which led up to the crash and shows how the accident investigators fig...