Piedmont Airlines Flight 22

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**Piedmont Airlines Flight 22**
Summary
Date	July 19, 1967
Type	Mid-air collision
Site	Hendersonville, North Carolina
Fatalities	82
Injuries	0
Aircraft 1
Aircraft type	Boeing 727
Operator	Piedmont Airlines
Tail number	N68650
Passengers	74
Crew	5
Survivors	0
Aircraft 2
Aircraft type	Cessna 310
Operator	Lanseair, Inc.
Tail number	N3121S
Passengers	2
Crew	1
Survivors	0

Piedmont Airlines Flight 22 was a Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727 on a scheduled airline flight in the United States from Asheville Regional Airport in Asheville, North Carolina to Roanoke Regional Airport in Roanoke, Virginia. Shortly after departure, the flight collided with a twin-engine Cessna 310 on approach to the same airport. Both aircraft were destroyed, and all passengers and crew on both aircraft were killed.

The aircraft were both operating under Instrument Flight Rules, and both were in radio contact with the Asheville control tower, though on different frequencies.

[edit] Original investigation

This was the first major airline accident investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB's report placed the primary responsibility for the accident on the Cessna pilot, while citing air traffic control procedures as a contributing factor, and recommended a review of minimum pilot skill levels required for instrument flight.

[edit] Controversy and new investigation

In 2006, however, 38 years after the accident, the NTSB agreed to reopen the investigation because of apparent irregularities identified by Paul Houle, an amateur historian who spent several years studying the accident. Houle noted the following problems with the NTSB's original investigation:

The original NTSB report omitted the fact that the Cessna pilot had properly reported his heading^{[citation needed]}, which should have alerted air traffic control to a potential conflict between the two planes. The report claims that there was a four-second pause at that point, but the transcript shows no such pause.^{[citation needed]}

The original NTSB report does not mention that there was a fire in a cockpit ashtray in the 727, which (as shown by the cockpit voice recorder transcript) occupied the attention of the 727 crew for the 35 seconds before the collision.

The lead NTSB investigator had an apparent conflict of interest, since his brother was a vice president and director of Piedmont Airlines.

Houle also mentioned that, at the time, the newly-formed NTSB was not fully independent of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), since both reported to the Department of Transportation. Houle claimed that these conflicts of interest led the NTSB to avoid citing either Piedmont or FAA controllers as primary causes of the accident.