On September 12, 1980, Florida Commuter Airlines Flight 65, operating from

West Palm Beach, Florida West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is located immediately to the west of the adjacent Palm Beach, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lagoon. The populati ...

Freeport, Bahamas Freeport is a city, district and free trade zone on the island of Grand Bahama of the northwest Bahamas. In 1955, Wallace Groves, a Virginian financier with lumber interests in Grand Bahama, was granted of pineyard with substantial areas of swa ...

, crashed into the

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near West End Settlement on

Grand Bahama Island Grand Bahama is the northernmost of the islands of the Bahamas, with the town of West End located east of Palm Beach, Florida. It is the third largest island in the Bahamas island chain of approximately 700 islands and 2,400 cays. The island i ...

. The Douglas DC-3A used on the flight was not recovered and all 34 persons on board were killed.
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.
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. Investigators were unable to determine the cause of the crash, but determined that factors likely contributing to the crash included flight into a thunderstorm, unreliable instruments due to discrepancies in the

pitot-static system A pitot-static system is a system of pressure-sensitive instruments that is most often used in aviation to determine an aircraft's airspeed, Mach number, altitude, and altitude trend. A pitot-static system generally consists of a pitot tube, a s ...

, and lack of proper operational oversight by airline management.
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Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Flight information

Florida Commuter Airlines Flight 65 was a scheduled passenger flight from

Palm Beach International Airport Palm Beach International Airport is a public airport in Palm Beach County, Florida, located just west of the city of West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, which it serves as the primary airport for. It is also the primary airport for most o ...

West Palm Beach West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Grand Bahama International Airport Grand Bahama International Airport (GBIA) is an international airport in Freeport, Bahamas. It was privately owned until the government of the Bahamas purchased it in April 2021. The airport was a joint venture between Hutchison Port Holding ...

.The flight was operated using a Douglas DC-3A ( registration number ''N75KW''). The aircraft had not been flown for about five weeks prior to the accident, and the

pitot tube A pitot ( ) tube (pitot probe) measures fluid flow velocity. It was invented by a French engineer, Henri Pitot, in the early 18th century, and was modified to its modern form in the mid-19th century by a French scientist, Henry Darcy. It is ...

s were left uncovered during that period. The flight was operated by Captain William "Bill" Selva Jr. (44), and First Officer Diana Leonard (25). The captain was described as an excellent pilot and very familiar with the route; the first officer had experience on the route and with flying the DC-3. Two flight attendants and 30 passengers were also on board. A passenger had initially booked the flight for 13 friends and colleagues
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. on the airline's much smaller

Piper Navajo The Piper PA-31 Navajo is a family of cabin-class, twin-engined aircraft designed and built by Piper Aircraft for the general aviation market, most using Lycoming engines. It was also license-built in a number of Latin American countries. Tar ...

, paying $400 for the trip. As the Navajo seats a maximum of 7 passengers, the airline decided to use the larger DC-3 aircraft. In order to fill the excess seats, the airline informally sold tickets for as low as $18 to airline business partners. This resulted in large numbers of passengers who were acquaintances.
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Accident

Flight 65 was originally scheduled to depart at 19:30

Eastern Daylight Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small por ...

. At 19:40, Flight 65 attempted to depart, but the pilots aborted the takeoff because they had no airspeed indication. Passengers were deplaned. Maintenance determined that

mud dauber Mud dauber (or "mud wasp" or "dirt dauber") is a name commonly applied to a number of wasps from either the family Sphecidae or Crabronidae which build their nests from mud; this excludes members of the family Vespidae (especially the subfamily ...

nests were blocking the

openings for the plane's

(which is used to measure airspeed). Maintenance cleared the nests, and a high speed taxi run verified the fix. Passengers reboarded, and the plane departed West Palm Beach at approximately 20:35. At 20:49, Flight 65 flew beyond the range of Miami radar. At 20:55, Flight 65 made contact with approach controllers at Freeport. At 20:58, the approach controller cleared Flight 65 to descend to 1,400 feet, and the first officer acknowledged the transmission. That was the last communication from the plane. The plane had no radar and no way to know how bad the weather was ahead of them. The control tower tried to radio the plane at 21:15, but received no response.
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. At 22:43 a

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

C-131 The Convair C-131 Samaritan is an American twin-engined military transport produced from 1954 to 1956 by Convair. It is the military version of the Convair CV-240 family of airliners.Gradidge 1997, p. 20–21. Design and development The design ...

reached the area and spotted debris and bodies floating in the water. There were heavy thunderstorms in the area. 16 bodies were recovered prior to the termination of the search on September 15, 1980. There were initial reports that some of the bodies were wearing life jackets, but later reports from the US Coast Guard indicated none of the recovered passengers were wearing life jackets. Eyewitness accounts state that the plane was flying low and plunged into the ocean shortly after passing through a cloud.

Investigation

The crash was investigated by the

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...

(NTSB). Wreckage from the aircraft was not recovered, except for seat cushions and plywood bulkheads found floating near the accident site. Regulations at the time did not require

flight recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has b ...

s to be installed on the aircraft, and no cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder was installed. Due to lack of evidence, the NTSB was unable to determine the probable cause of the accident. However, the NTSB did identify factors which may have contributed to the crash. Such factors included "known thunderstorm activities and turbulence, preexisting discrepancies in the

of the aircraft and their effect on the reliability of the

flight instruments Flight instruments are the instruments in the cockpit of an aircraft that provide the pilot with data about the flight situation of that aircraft, such as altitude, airspeed, vertical speed, heading and much more other crucial information in fli ...

, and lack of operational control exercised by the airline's management." The originally scheduled pilot was unable to fly and the replacement pilot informed flight operations for

Florida Commuter Airlines Florida Commuter Airlines was a small United States, U.S. regional airline based out of Palm Beach International Airport that evolved directly from Roberson Air, Inc., which did business as Red Baron Airlines. This happened when Dr. Rudolph P. Sch ...

that he was not qualified to operate Part 135 flights since he was overdue for a 6-month instrument check. The Director of Operations assured the replacement pilot that the flight was to be conducted under Part 91 and he was not required to have a current 6-month instrument check. The pilot then agreed to fly a Part 91 flight. The NTSB determined that the method used to clear the pitot tubes was an "...improper maintenance procedure" and may have contributed to the crash. The chief mechanic, Sam DeThomas, used a small screwdriver and a coat hanger instead of the required procedure to remove the mud dauber nest. DeThomas said the reason he didn't follow the proper procedure (which required disconnecting instruments from the panel and blowing compressed air through the pitot tubes) was passenger impatience. DeThomas told investigators that "I had the problem of people screaming that they wanted to get back on the airplane – not get back on the airplane, but they wanted to go."
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. During the investigation, investigators received "specific allegations" of the possibility of sabotage. However, in its final report, the NTSB noted "''Sabotage, or foul play, has been discounted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and has not been considered in this evaluation''".

Aftermath

A committee called the ''Raise the Plane Committee'' made plans to locate the aircraft and recover it from an estimated depth of 1800 feet. The recovery effort was abandoned after the committee was unable to secure enough money to locate the plane.
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. The Airline was insured by Aviation Insurance Co., a representative of

Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body gov ...

. Coverage included aircraft liability, property damage, bodily injury to passengers, and damage to passenger's property.
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. Several of the passenger's families sued the airline, but later settled for $35,000 per passenger. The mother of one of those killed later stated that "I feel badly about it, but we couldn't go through any more. Answering all those questions... They (attorneys for the insurance company) made us feel like she was someone who rented a room from us. I cannot tell you what she meant to me. A beautiful young girl walked out the door and was brutally murdered."
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Notes

References

{{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1980 Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1980 Aviation accidents and incidents in the Bahamas Florida Commuter Airlines accidents and incidents 1980 in the Bahamas September 1980 events in the United States Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-3