The Fall of the Viscount: The crash of Capital Airlines flight 20

On the 18th of January 1960, a four-engine turboprop Vickers Viscount fell from the night sky over eastern Virginia, pancaking into a ravine and taking with it the lives of 50 people. The scene of the disaster provided a number of strange clues, including trees that had punched directly through the plane from below yet remained standing, as though the aircraft had fallen straight down with no forward momentum. Evidence suggested that some, perhaps all, of the engines had failed — and yet none showed any sign of a malfunction. The aircraft didn’t carry any black boxes, and with no survivors to explain what happened during the flight’s final plunge, investigators decided to work backwards from what they had — a motley collection of seemingly random clues — in order to piece together the harrowing events that most likely occurred aboard Capital Airlines flight 20. Their findings would ultimately help reshape several aspects of the way all turbine-powered aircraft are certified, even as the disaster itself has been largely forgotten, along with the pioneering yet troubled airline that it befell. <a href="https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-fall-of-the-viscount-the-crash-of-capital-airlines-flight-20-b22148c17cc1">Website</a>