About Terror over the Tarheel State
nspired by actual events—National Flight 643 pulled up to the gate nearly an hour behind schedule. The Boeing 707 aircraft was supposed to make a quick turn-around and get back in the air in less than thirty minutes, but this was not to be. During the preflight inspection, a maintenance issue was discovered, requiring a lengthy repair. Luckily, on this night, two smaller aircraft happened to be sitting in reserve. Both aircraft were quickly brought up and pressed into service.
Finally, in the early pre-dawn hours of January 6, 1960, both replacement aircraft roared down the runway and disappeared into the night. After receiving clearance to depart, Flight 1152, one of the two replacement aircraft, took off from Idlewild Airport, destined for sunny Florida, but it never arrived.
Instead, Flight 1152 broke up and crashed into the rural farmlands of North Carolina. But why? Within hours, the FBI and the Civil Aeronautics Board were on the scene, trying to figure out precisely what had happened. Was it a mechanical issue, or was something more sinister to blame? After five years of tireless work amassing a mountain of circumstantial evidence, the FBI settled on the theory of suicide by a passenger aboard the flight and quietly closed the case. Was the FBI correct? Was it suicide, murder, or something else entirely? What happened that night and why it happened is still as much a mystery today as it was on that fateful night sixty-one years ago. What really happened that night? You be the judge.
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