Oklahoma is no stranger to disasters, but it’s normally natural disasters that make national headlines for the Sooner State. But that wasn’t the case on the night of April 22, 1966, when a plane carrying 98 passengers and crew crashed into the hills just outside of Ardmore.

On April 22, 1966, American Flyers Flight 280 departed from Monterey Regional Airport in California to Columbus Airport in Georgia, with a scheduled stop at Ardmore Municipal Airport in Oklahoma.
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The flight operated on a U.S. Military Air Command contract and was carrying 92 Army recruits and 6 crew members.
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Everything on the flight was normal until it was approaching Runway 8 at the Ardmore Airport. The aircraft overshot the runway and crashed into a hill, bursting into flames.
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The wreckage was scattered over 400 yards in some of the roughest terrains of southern Oklahoma. 15 people aboard the aircraft survived, many of whom are still alive today to tell about this tragic event.
Paul Thompson/Flickr

Investigators found no evidence of mechanical failure or defect. It was later discovered the pilot, Reed Pigman, was under care for arteriosclerosis. The probable cause of the crash was: “The incapacitation, due to a coronary insufficiency, of the pilot-in-command at a critical point during visual, circling approach being conducted under instrument flight conditions.”

There is a memorial outside of Ardmore Municipal in remembrance of the 83 people who lost their lives on that tragic day.

Southern Oklahoma is home to another plane crash site in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. In 1968 a small plane carrying two passengers en route to Las Vegas crashed in the Wichita Mountains. Vistors to the refuge can hike to the site and still see debris left behind from the crash. Click here for more information.

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