On this day fifty years ago, May 28, 1971, Audie Murphy died in a plane crash outside Roanoke.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

His movies have been showing up on TV lately. He looks like a sixteen-year-old kid. You just can't imagine that he did the things he did.

Audie Murphy


Audie Murphy photographed in 1948 wearing the U.S. Army khaki "Class A" (tropical service) uniform with full-size medals.

Birth name: Audie Leon Murphy
Born: 20 June 1925; Kingston, Texas, U.S.
Died: 28 May 1971 (aged 45); Brush Mountain, near Catawba, Craig County, Virginia, U.S.
Buried: Arlington National Cemetery
Website: Audie L. Murphy

Audie Leon Murphy (20 June 1925 – 28 May 1971) was an American soldier, actor, songwriter, and rancher. He was one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He received every military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. Murphy received the Medal of Honor for valor that he demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, then leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.

{snip so much you can't begin to imagine it}

Death and commemorations

Main article: 1971 Colorado Aviation Aero Commander 680 crash


Murphy's headstone at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia

On 28 May 1971, Murphy was killed when the private plane in which he was a passenger crashed into Brush Mountain, near Catawba, Virginia, 20 miles (32 km) west of Roanoke in conditions of rain, clouds, fog and zero visibility. The pilot and four other passengers were also killed.

The aircraft was a twin-engine Aero Commander 680 flown by a pilot who had a private-pilot license and a reported 8,000 hours of flying time, but who held no instrument rating. The aircraft was recovered on 31 May. After her husband's death, Pamela Murphy moved into a small apartment and got a clerk position at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles, where she remained employed for 35 years.

In 1975, a court awarded Murphy's widow, Pamela, and their two children $2.5 million in damages because of the accident.


Monument at the site of the Virginia plane crash in which Audie Murphy was killed

On 7 June 1971, Murphy was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. In attendance were Ambassador to the U.N. George H. W. Bush, Army Chief of Staff William Westmoreland, and many of the 3rd Infantry Division. Murphy's gravesite is in Section 46, headstone number 46-366-11, located across Memorial Drive from the Amphitheater. A special flagstone walkway was later constructed to accommodate the large number of people who visit to pay their respects. It is the cemetery's second most-visited gravesite, after that of President John F. Kennedy.

The headstones of Medal of Honor recipients buried at Arlington National Cemetery are normally decorated in gold leaf. Murphy previously requested that his stone remain plain and inconspicuous, like that of an ordinary soldier. The headstone contains the birth year 1924, based upon purportedly falsified materials among his military records. In 1974, a large granite marker was erected just off the Appalachian Trail at 37.364554°N 80.225748°W at 3,100' elevation, near the crash site.

Civilian honors were bestowed on Murphy during his lifetime and posthumously, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2013, Murphy was honored by his home state with the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor.

In 2014, the rock band Sabaton released a song titled "To Hell and Back" in reference to Audie Murphy and his film, on their album Heroes.

{snip}

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. 1971 Colorado Aviation Aero Commander 680 crash

1971 Colorado Aviation Aero Commander 680 crash

Accident
Date: 28 May 1971
Summary: Pilot error
Site: Brushy Mountain, Roanoke, Virginia, United States
Coordinates: 37°21′52″N 80°13′32″W

The 1971 Colorado Aviation Aero Commander 680 crash claimed the life of decorated American World War II veteran Audie Murphy and five other people on May 28, 1971. The aircraft's passengers were on a business trip from Atlanta, Georgia to Martinsville, Virginia, aboard an Aero Commander 680 Super twin engine aircraft owned and operated by Colorado Aviation Co, Inc. The aircraft crashed into the side of Brushy Mountain, fourteen nautical miles northwest of Roanoke, Virginia, during conditions of poor visibility.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that the crash was caused by the pilot's decision to continue operating under visual flight rules (VFR) into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), combined with his lack of experience in the aircraft type.

{snip}

Accident

On the morning of May 28, 1971, an Aero Commander 680 Super prepared to depart DeKalb–Peachtree Airport in Atlanta, operating as a non-scheduled passenger air taxi flight under visual flight rules to its destination of Blue Ridge Airport in Martinsville, Virginia, located 284 nautical miles northeast. The estimated flight time was one hour forty-six minutes.

Before takeoff, the Aero Commander's pilot requested a weather report by phone and decided weather along the route was safe for visual flying. No flight plan was required and none was filed. Air traffic control at Peachtree cleared the flight and the aircraft departed at 09:10 EDT. As the flight continued, weather conditions deteriorated, and two hours twenty minutes after take off, at 11:30, witnesses in Galax, Virginia (sixty miles due west of Martinsville) reported seeing the plane flying circles in and out of the clouds at approximately 150 feet above ground level (AGL). Shortly afterward the aircraft unsuccessfully attempted to land on a four-lane highway northwest of Galax. After making a pass over the town at near treetop level, the aircraft left the area heading west towards the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The last communication with the aircraft was at 11:49, when the pilot contacted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Flight Service Station at Roanoke's Woodrum Airport asking for a weather report and saying he intended to land there. At this point the aircraft had flown past its destination of Martinsville and was west of and below the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The latest weather report radioed by Roanoke was "measured ceiling 1,000 feet broken, 2500 feet overcast, visibility 3 miles in light rain and fog, with mountain ridges obscured". The pilot did not indicate he was in any kind of trouble or report the aircraft's current position.

At 12:08 the aircraft impacted the west side of Brushy Mountain at the 2,700-foot level while flying at "high speed level attitude" on a heading of 100 degrees to the Roanoke VORTAC navigation beacon. The collision into the heavily wooded slope and post crash fire destroyed the aircraft, and all six people on board received fatal injuries.

{snip}