Air New England Flight 248


Air New England Flight 248 was a De Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter that crashed on approach to Barnstable Municipal Airport in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, on 17 June 1979. All of those on the aircraft survived with the exception of the pilot, who was killed instantly.

Flight designations, route, and crew

At 10:48 p.m. EDT on 17 June 1979, Flight 248, with eight passengers and a crew of two, crashed in a heavily wooded area in the Yarmouth Port section of Yarmouth, Massachusetts, about 1.5 miles northeast of Barnstable Municipal Airport while on an instrument landing system approach. The crash occurred on the end of a flight from LaGuardia Airport in New York, New York. The aircraft, piloted by Air New England co-founder George Parmenter, was several miles short of the runway.

Crash

The aircraft crashed in the middle of Camp Greenough, a heavily wooded Boy Scouts of America camp. Parmenter was killed in the crash. The co-pilot and several passengers were injured.
An uninjured passenger managed to make her way through thick brush to the Mid Cape Highway, and flagged down a passing car. The motorist drove her to the airport, where she alerted authorities to the crash. Rescuers, with the aid of a brush-clearing truck, were able to cut a swath through the brush to the crash site and aid the survivors.

Book

In June 2009, author Robert Sabbag, one of the passengers on board Air New England Flight 248, released a book called Down Around Midnight, a first-hand account of the crash from survivors and rescuers.