Talk:Southern Airways Flight 242

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Disaster management, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Disaster management articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

	This article is within the scope of the Aviation WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.	Aviation Portal
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Additional information and associated projects or task forces: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following to the template call: <!-- B-Class-1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points have appropriate inline citations. --> |B-Class-1=yes/no <!-- B-Class-2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2=yes/no <!-- B-Class-3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3=yes/no <!-- B-Class-4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4=yes/no <!-- B-Class-5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5=yes/no Aviation accident task force

[edit] Accident site

There is some confusion regarding the accident site. The NTSB calls the site: "State Spur Highway 92 bisecting New Hope, Georgia", and the accident site is "New Hope, GA" for short in all accident summaries. The NTSB supplies the site coordinates of 33°57'45"N, 84°47'13"W, and depicts it on an aviation Sectional chart of the era in the report appendix, at a location that roughly corresponds to the specified coords (crudely hand drawn).

The main problem is the town name "New Hope". As of 2006, the closest town in GA by that name, per Googlemaps, is 150 miles to the east, incorporated into Lincolnton, GA. OTOH, state highway 92 is (currently) a rural road that merges with current state highway 381 that seems to have a nice straight section that could serve for an emergency landing and matches with the given coords. The straight section extends to the NE from the final eastward path of the flight, as reconstructed from radar and depicted on the Sectional chart. The merge point of current (2006) route 92 seems to be somewhat northeast of that location, on state highway 381.

Per Google and WP, "New Hope" is also the name of an old antebellum church, apparently not far from Dallas, GA, where the famous Battle of New Hope Church was fought, so possibly there was some locality by that name near that site in 1977. Perhaps someone local or with more specific info can shed light on this issue. Thanks, Crum375 17:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Doing some more research, it seems in fact there is or was a small community (30 families in 1997?) called "New Hope" just northeast of Dallas, GA, apparently right at the accident site. Highway 92 has been relocated several times in recent years and Hwy 381 has been officially 'retired' (but still shown on GoogleMaps) and renamed 'Dallas-Acworth Highway'. Here are some sources: [1][2] I'll return the "New Hope" as accident site once I can find it mentioned anywhere else, unrelated to the accident. Note again that GoogleMaps currently places "New Hope, GA" 150 miles east at Lincolnton. Crum375 22:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Reading [3] the mystery is over: clearly Hwy 92 as depicted in the old 60's maps is exactly where the presumed "straight section" was and still is, and "New Hope" appears on the enclosed maps from 1964 and 1968, matching the NTSB accident coords. The "92 Spur" terminology is also included. Now the issue is to include the old location name(s) followed by the new name(s). Crum375 22:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Some more info for the record. Per MapQuest, there are eight (8) different "New Hope, GA" towns in 8 different counties. The accident site is in Paulding County, here. So "New Hope", Paulding County, still exists in 2006. There is hope yet. Crum375 23:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to say you've done a great job editing and improving this article. Well done! - Itsfullofstars 18:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you - very much appreciated. Crum375 21:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

And thanks also for the copy-edit job. Crum375 21:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I can shed a little light on this subject, as I live less than a mile from the crash site. The mailing address here is, in fact, "Dallas, GA", however the plane actually crashed on a section of road that was then Georgia Highway 92. This area is referred to by long-time residents as the "New Hope Community". Paulding County even recognizes it with county maintained signs along Dallas-Acworth Highway that read "Welcome to the New Hope Community". As far as where the name came from, that I do not know. I do know that my house (and subdivision) was built on the site of the Civil War Battle (The Battle for New Hope Church). --Thebisch 21:04, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources and counts

I've found plenty of ordinarily reliable secondary sources to expand this article ([4]) but they conflict as to the counts of passengers, survivors, and people killed on the ground. I'm hesitant to change this without some authoritative confirmation. - Dravecky (talk) 01:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

If you've got reliable sources to back up your information, be bold and make your changes! It looks like you're thinking of updating the statistics (survivors, etc). This page already has conflicting information (the infobox doesn't match the leading paragraphs). I'd say go ahead and change it! --Thebisch (talk) 13:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

That's my problem--the sources themselves conflict so I'm not sure which to believe. I'll do more research as time permits and see if I can come up with definitive numbers. - Dravecky (talk) 05:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)