December 1, 1974 — a quiet Sunday afternoon in the town of Bluemont, Virginia — until residents were shaken by what happened on the mountain.
“I was nine and we had a cabin in the mountains. We were on our way home from that Sunday, we had gone up for the weekend and we heard the impact,” Lisa Seeberger with the Bluemont Citizens. “We had no idea of course what had happened but we saw the ambulances from Marshall and fire trucks began going down the road."
TWA Flight 514, A Boeing 727 from Columbus, Ohio, bound for Washington, had been diverted from what was then National Airport to Dulles. On its approach, it slammed into Mount Weather. All 92 people on board died.
“The crash occurred on private property, so sadly there never was a memorial done,” said Scott Seeberger with the Bluemont Citizens Association.
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Since the crash, people have been coming to a rock on Blue Ridge Mountain Road, an impromptu place of remembrance and mourning. But as the Dec. 1 anniversary of the crash approaches, the town is preparing for a more fitting remembrance.
They will unveil a monument in front of the town center, which was a school at the time of the crash and served as a command center and a morgue during post-crash operations. There will also be a plaque bearing the names of the victims and honoring those who answered the call: the first responders and the ordinary townspeople who mobilized in the aid of strangers,
“They started organizing who was cooking what, they got donations from Safeway, they got donations from local restaurants,” said Rachel Wetherill with the Bluemont Citizens Association.
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The memorial will bring some comfort. Cynthia Morris from the Bluemont Citizens Association recalled a message from the sister of one of the victims.
“‘And Celeste’s email said to us that ‘suddenly Cathy’s become real again, thanks to a group of strangers,’” she said.
What happened on that mountain half a century ago has had a lasting effect on air travel and safety now in several ways. Among them, the way pilots and air traffic controllers communicate.
“The flight crew was confused with regard to how low they could descend while flying this approach to Dulles,” Scott Seeberger said. “The second thing that happened was the creation or the mandatory installation of something called a ground proximity warning system.”
Out of one tragedy, countless others have been averted.
