Southern Airways Flight 242

Southern Airways Flight 242 was a scheduled flight from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to Atlanta, Georgia, with a stop in Huntsville, Alabama. On April 4, 1977, the Douglas DC-9-31 executed a forced landing on a spur route of Georgia State Route 92 in New Hope, Paulding County, Georgia, United States, after suffering hail damage and losing thrust on both engines in a severe thunderstorm.

At the time of the accident, the Southern Airways aircraft was flying from Huntsville-Madison County Jetport to Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport. Sixty-three people on the aircraft (including both pilots) and nine people on the ground died; twenty passengers survived, as well as two flight attendants. It remains the deadliest aviation accident to occur in the state of Georgia.

Accident

The flight crew consisted of Captain William W. McKenzie (54), a highly experienced pilot with 19,380 flight hours, with 3,205 of them on the DC-9, first officer Lyman W. Keele Jr. (34), who had 3,878 flight hours, with 235 of them on the DC-9, and two flight attendants. The pilots were advised of the presence of embedded thunderstorms and possible tornadoes along their general route prior to their departure from Huntsville, but they were not subsequently told that the cells had since formed a squall line. The flight crew had flown through that same area from Atlanta earlier in the day, encountering only mild turbulence and light rain.

The weather system had greatly intensified in the meantime. The peak convective activity was later shown on ground radar to be near Rome, Georgia, to which the flight was cleared to proceed by air traffic control. The crew attempted to pick out a path through the cells using their on-board weather radar display, but they were apparently misled by the radar's attenuation effect, and they proceeded toward what they believed was a low-intensity area, when in fact it was the peak convective activity point, attenuated by rain.

As the aircraft descended from its cruising altitude of 17,000 to 14,000 ft near Rome VOR, it apparently entered a thunderstorm cell and encountered a massive amount of rain and hail. The hail was so intense that it broke the aircraft's windshield. The Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7A engines ingested a massive amount of water and hail causing major damage to the compressors and flameout.

The crew attempted unsuccessfully to restart the engines, gliding down unpowered, while simultaneously trying to find an emergency landing field within range. Air traffic control suggested Dobbins Air Force Base, about 20 mi east, as a possible landing site, but it was beyond reach. Cartersville Airport, a general-aviation airport about 15 mi north with a much shorter runway intended for light aircraft was considered, but it was behind the aircraft and out of reach. Before the aircraft turned toward Dobbins, the closest airport was another general-aviation airport, Cornelius Moore Airport (now Polk County Airport – Cornelius Moore Field), but the air traffic controllers did not know about it (it was just outside their area of responsibility and not shown on their screens), and it was not considered.

As the aircraft ran out of altitude and options, gliding with a broken windshield and no engine power, the crew made visual contact with the ground and spotted a straight section of a rural highway below. They executed an unpowered forced landing on that road, but during the rollout, the aircraft's left wing collided with a gas station causing it to swerve to the left and crash into a wooded area. The pilots and 61 passengers were killed by impact forces and fire, but 22 of the passengers survived, as well as both flight attendants. Nine people on the ground were also killed, including a family of seven. Among the passengers killed was rhythm and blues singer Annette Snell.

Flight attendants' commendation

The flight attendants on board were Catherine Lemoine–Cooper (July 18, 1950 – June 12, 2020) as senior flight attendant, and Sandy Purl Ward (born February 23, 1953), second flight attendant.

The NTSB noted in its report that despite the fact that the flight crew did not communicate with the cabin crew during the emergency sequence, the flight attendants on their own initiative briefed and prepared the passengers for an emergency landing as the plane glided down. Just prior to touchdown, with no prior notice or cue from the flight crew that the plane was about to crash land, the flight attendants "saw trees" in the windows, and immediately yelled to the passengers a final "brace for impact!" command. The flight attendants also helped evacuate the passengers from the burning plane after the crash landing. The NTSB concluded:"The flight attendants acted commendably for initiating a comprehensive emergency briefing of the passengers for their protection in preparation for a crash landing. This contributed to the number of survivors."

Purl wrote the book Am I Alive? about the experience, and is a motivational speaker. In her book, she tells the story of the crash and the history of critical incident stress management's entry into the aviation industry. Purl retired from Northwest in 1994.

Accident location

The NTSB identified the accident site in its report as "Highway 92 Spur, bisecting New Hope, GA", and also included the geographical coordinates. In addition, the NTSB report includes a depiction of the accident site, hand-drawn as a circled "X" on an aviation sectional chart.

The designation this highway has changed in the years since the crash. In 1979, Georgia State Route 92 Spur was renumbered to Georgia State Route 381. Route 381 was decommissioned as a numbered state highway between 1990 and 1991. As of 2026, the road section through New Hope used for the forced landing is signed as Dallas–Acworth Highway.