American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D
Lockheed L-188C · Pilot incapacitation
From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY) to Columbus Airport (CSG)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 83 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 98
- Survivors
- 15
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 15
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Lockheed L-188C
- Aircraft type
- Lockheed L-188
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N183H
- Operator
- American Flyers Airline
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monterey Regional Airport (MRY)To Columbus Airport (CSG)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 135: Air taxi & commuter (domestic military passenger contract)
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Uncontrolled collision with ground/water
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Pilot suffered heart attack
- Pilot in command › Incapacitation
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D was a flight operated on a U.S. Military Air Command contract from Monterey Regional Airport in California to Columbus Airport in Georgia, via Ardmore Municipal Airport, Oklahoma. On April 22, 1966, while approaching Runway 8 at Ardmore, the aircraft overshot the runway and crashed into a hill, bursting into flames. Eighty-three of the 98 passengers and crew on board died as a result of the accident making it the deadliest to have occurred in Oklahoma.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigated the accident.
Investigators found no evidence of mechanical failure or defect related to the accident, although the flight data recorder had suffered a mechanical failure unrelated to the accident and may not have been properly checked by the flight engineer before the flight; it had produced no recording for the flight. The airplane did not have (and was not required to have) a cockpit voice recorder.
Some days after the crash, it was learned that the pilot, Reed Pigman, who also happened to be the president of American Flyers, was under care for arteriosclerosis. An autopsy of Pigman determined his cause of death to either be multiple injuries or coronary artery sclerosis.
It was also determined that Reed Pigman had falsified his application for a first-class medical certificate. He had not disclosed that he was diabetic or that he had a history of heart issues dating back almost two decades; either of these would have been disqualifying factors for the certificate.
On March 28, 1967, the CAB published its final report. The CAB determined that the probable cause for the accident was:
Text from the Wikipedia article “American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D” (revision 1359059263, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
MILITARY WX BRIEFED.ACFT STRUCK HILL ON VISUAL,CIRCLING APPROACH UNDER INSTRUMENT FLIGHT CONDITION
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D
- Revision
- 1359059263 · 2026-06-12 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4743789
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19660422P010873
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D" (page 37992757, revision 1359059263); merged with NTSB case NTSB19660422P010873 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19660422P010873: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19660422P010873
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19660422P010873: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19660422P010873: operated under Part 135: Air taxi & commuter (mil contract-passg-domestic)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19660422P010873: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19660422P010873: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "American Flyers Airline Flight 280/D" and NTSB case NTSB19660422P010873, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.