Charter Plane Crashes Near Reno, Killing 69

A chartered “gambler’s special” airliner carrying 72 people crashed and burned shortly after taking off from Reno early today, killing all but three of those aboard.

The pilot of the Minneapolis-bound four-engine Lockheed Electra turbojet radioed the Reno tower moments before the crash, saying that the plane had developed a vibration and he wanted to return to Reno Cannon International Airport for an emergency landing, according to Federal Aviation Adminstration spokesman Ed Pinto.

The Galaxy Airlines plane, which lifted off at 1:05 a.m., crashed three miles from the airport, two miles south of downtown Reno. It was the same aircraft used last year by the Rev. Jesse Jackson in his unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

A sheriff’s deputy who witnessed the crash said he believed that the plane already was in flames when it struck the ground.

Burned wreckage was scattered along a 300-yard swath where Virginia Street merges with U.S. 395.

Narrowly missing a motel, a bar and several other businesses, the plane apparently slammed into a ditch, bounced into the air, then struck the ground again, coming to rest in a recreation vehicle sales lot. Bodies and flaming wreckage were thrown across the highway.

“It was terrible,” said witness Dennis Bickel, who lives three blocks from today’s crash scene. “There were airplane parts and seats and people all over . . . right on the road. . . . It’s amazing anyone survived.”

Kim Fisher, Bickel’s girlfriend, said, “We heard two explosions, then saw the flames on the street.”

One of the survivors, George Lamson Jr., 17, of St. Paul, Minn., who escaped with minor cuts and bruises, told a surgeon at Washoe Medical Center that “the plane started to descend, made a right turn and then there was an explosion.”

“He (Lamson Jr.) was sitting on the left-hand side when an explosion occurred,” said Jack Bulavsky, spokesman for the Washoe Medical Center. “All of a sudden (he told Bulavsky) he found himself outside the airplane, still strapped into his seat. He undid his (seat belt) buckle and walked away.”

Young Lamson was described as “quite lucid” and apparently suffered burns on the face, hands and forearm, and a cut forehead.

The youth’s father, George Lamson Sr., 41, also escaped, but suffered a fractured skull and other critical injuries. The third survivor, Robert Miggins, 45, of Minneapolis, suffered burns over 80% of his body and was in critical condition in Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital in Las Vegas, where he was flown for treatment.

In Washington, D.C., Jackson said the plane was the same one he had chartered from March to May for his presidential campaign. He said he switched airplanes after the Electra was bounced around heavily around while flying through a series of what the pilot called “tornadoes” while en route to Dallas last spring. Although the aircraft landed safely, reporters traveling on the plane refused to fly on it again.

The Lockheed L-118 turboprop was one of 170 of its type manufactured in Burbank between 1957 and 1961. About 95 are still in service around the world, according to a company spokesman.