Patsy Cline: The Flight 38 Years Later

The Flight 38 Years Later
March 5, 2001
by Bill Knight

Hello fellow Patsifans. My name is Bill Knight. I live near Nashville, Tennessee. I am 44 years old and I am Vice President of a local manufacturing company. I am also a pilot and avid Patsy Cline fan. I knew that Patsy had died in a plane crash years ago, but really didn’t know much more than what was portrayed in the movie “Sweet Dreams.” I have been a big Patsy fan for years. One night, about a year or so ago, I was at home alone and a little bored and started looking through my video collection. I happened to pull out a copy of “Sweet Dreams.” I had not seen it in a long time and decided… why not? I love the movie. Every time I watch it I come away so deeply moved by the story of Patsy. The thing I admire the most about Patsy was the fact that she triumphed over adversity after adversity. I think Jessica Lange captured much of Patsy’s real personality. The one special thing about Patsy is that she was like all of us; she had her problems and faults. I guess you could say she did not try to hide her human side but was just who she was… Patsy. Patsy was very determined and believed in herself and, in her words, the man upstairs. The personal setbacks seemed to only make her stronger and that much more determined. We all know what a talent Patsy was blessed with, and I really believe had she not died in that crash she would be a superstar now.

Much of what is written here is speculation and opinion based on experience as pilots of a Piper Comanche, various official and unofficial reports published and told to us during our investigation. There is also much reference to documented facts that can be reviewed by anyone. We have tried to render the true picture as near as we can piece it together. If you have other facts that are not mentioned we would like to know.

Now, back to my original story. After I watched the movie, I sat and pondered the crash and how it happened. I didn’t know much of anything except, being a pilot, I knew the portrayal could not be entirely accurate. The terrain around Dyersburg is too flat. I searched the Internet and all of the information I could find about the crash. Meaningful information was scant. Finally I came upon “Patsified!” and e-mailed Lisa. She had quite a bit of information including the FAA report of the crash that most of you have seen. I own a Piper Comanche (actually about the same year as the crash aircraft) and was intrigued by the fact that the crash aircraft was actually a Comanche instead of the Cessna 182 portrayed in the movie. I wrote a commentary about the report from a pilot’s perspective and she asked me about posting it on the web site, which was fine with me. I studied the crash at length and the more answers I found, the more questions came to me. You have seen the narratives that Lisa has posted. When I told her I was thinking about retracing the flight on the night of the 38th anniversary of the crash to see, as authentically as possible, what the flight conditions might have been, she asked me to leave a red rose at Cornelia Fort for Patsy. As we talked back and forth I realized that this project was of interest to many of you, so I have attempted to document the trip so that all of you can finish Patsy’s flight home along with me.

March 5, 2001 9:00 A.M. I called the flight service station in Nashville and got a standard briefing. The weather was forecast to be partly cloudy. Winds were 20+ and gusty and moderate to occasionally severe turbulence below 10,000 feet.

Around noon I picked up the rose and headed for the airport. Jeff (my airplane partner) and I loaded up our cameras and took off from Smyrna airport with a clearance from Nashville approach to pass south of the Nashville International Airport.

Jeff in the copilot’s seat, as we head over to Camden from Smyrna. We are on top of a scattered cloud deck and the ride was smooth as silk. Below the clouds was another story.

We were off the ground at 1:00 P.M. We set our course for Camden as our first stop that day. I had previously been in contact with Reid Bell from there in Camden and he had agreed to meet us at the Camden airport. Reid is a good source of information on the crash. He was at the crash site that morning of March 6, 1963.

We arrived in Camden around 1:45 and were met by Reid Bell, his wife and a couple of people from the local newspaper who wanted to do a story. Reid hosts a morning radio program there in Camden and he dedicated that morning to playing music from Patsy, Hawkshaw and Cowboy (Harold) Copas. He interviewed the man who was County Sheriff at that time of the crash. During the show, he told his audience a little about our trip and announced that we would be arriving in the afternoon and told people they could come out and see a plane like the one from the crash.

After talking with the local paper folks briefly, we loaded up with Reid and his wife and went to the site. We had been there about a month ago when we came for a dry run. I asked Reid a lot of questions. None of the answers I got were any more than I already knew except one. From Reid’s descriptions, the debris and clothing was eastward of the final impact site. The final impact site is right around within a few feet of the memorial rock. That told me the direction they were headed when they crashed. They had to be heading in a westward direction for the small debris and clothing to be hung up in the trees eastward of the final impact point. That tells me Randy had managed to turn the plane around from their original direction and head back toward Dyersburg. Of course he could have been heading that way out of coincidence due to total loss of directional control, but if that were the case, the odds are three to one that the direction of the plane would be westward. We know from the FAA report that they were seen coming out of the clouds. Since your pilot training teaches you to turn the plane around 180 degrees when you go into instrument conditions and fly back out, and that would have been Randy’s trained reaction, I have to put more stock in the notion he was trying to head back to Dyersburg. Of course Reid said that there is a chance he could be mistaken.

Reid also told me that the Country Music Hall of Fame had the tail section of the plane. The Country Music Hall of Fame is opening a new building May 19th in downtown Nashville and maybe it will be displayed there. Up until now they didn’t have enough space for it in the old building. Reid also told me that people from all around picked up pieces of the plane and kept them for souvenirs. He said the airplane was shattered into a lot of small pieces. Back then the FAA did not rope off the crash site and recover all of the wreckage for study the way they do now. Supposedly, one local had a chunk of the nose section hanging up in his garage.

When we returned to the airport, several locals had arrived to see the plane. I talked with a man named John Moore. He helped with the recovery effort. He said he went back days later where Patsy was found and picked up a compact, some lipstick and combs that obviously belonged to Patsy. John said some years ago Loretta Lynn, who lives just over in the next county, called him and asked for them to put in her museum. He gave them to her and she still has them to this day.

Bill and Jeff in front of the monument rock, March 5, 2001

Closer view of monument rock. Reid Bell in background.

Funeral Home on the square in Camden where the victims were taken after the crash.
Today the building is occupied by another concern.

John and his wife also told me about John’s brother Milburn. He lived in Bruceton at the time, which is a small town about 14 miles west of Camden. The night of the crash, Milburn was outside and heard a plane overhead. He looked up and he could see the plane flying real low. So low in fact that he could actually see the people inside. Turned out to be the plane that would crash a few minutes later nearer to Camden. I asked John what color the plane was and he said yellow with green markings. I don’t know if we will ever settle the color question. I have been told it was yellow, yellow and green, tan and green, green and white. We said our goodbyes and prepared to leave.

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