Trans World Airlines  Martin 4-0-4   N40403                     (c/n  14103)

                                       

                                              Anyone you know?   Hopefully not the crew aboard when this aircraft, by then ironically named
                                              "Skyliner Pittsburgh" was written off in a crash on 1 April 1956.  The aircraft had just left the
                                              Greater Pittsburgh Airport when a sharp yaw to port was experienced.  The first officer then
                                              inadvertently retarded the throttle aft of the position which triggered the autofeathering system.
                                              The prop consequently never feathered and the resultant drag at such low altitude (100 feet)
                                              caused the aircraft to continue the yaw into the ground.  Twenty-two of the thirty-six souls on
                                              board were killed.   Fortunately the airline had better luck with the majority of the 40 Martin
                                              4-0-4s it operated for the decade of the 1950s. Many of TWA's Martins went to Piedmont
                                              Airlines in the early 1960s.