John Paul Riddle, 1901-1989

Pike County, KY
Marker No. 2251

Marker Text: Aviation pioneer graduated from Pikeville College Academy in 1920. Flew plane under Pikeville’s Middle Bridge on July 4, 1923. Trained as a pilot in U.S. Army, he & T. Higbee Embry founded the Embry-Riddle Flying School in Cincinnati, 1925. Incorporated four years later as part of AVCO, which later became American Airlines. Over

Founded the Embry-Riddle School of Aviation in Miami, Fla. During WWII, trained pilots for U.S. and Britain. Later became Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univ. Inducted into the Ky. Aviation Hall of Fame and Fla. Aviation Historical Society. Received British Empire award and honorary degrees from Pikeville College & E-R Aeronautical Univ.

Location: On Main Street near intersection with Division Streets, Pikeville, KY. Presented by the Pikeville-Pike Co. Tourism Comm. And erected by the Kentucky Historical Society – Kentucky Department of Highways in 2007.

  Eighty-eight years ago this July 4^th, John Paul Riddle flew a plane under the Pikeville's Middle Bridge in Pikeville, Kentucky. I don't know what bridge in Pikeville that might be. I have only been in Pikeville twice and never had the time to figure out where the bridge mentioned was.

Marshall Plane Crash Site, Wayne County, WV

Marker Text: On Nov. 14, 1970, 75 people died in the worst sports-related air tragedy in U.S. history, when a Southern Airways DC-9 crashed into the hillside nearby. The victims included 36 Marshall University football players, 9 coaches and administrators, 25 fans and air crew of 5. No one survived this horrific disaster.

Location: Old Route 75, Kenova near the airport, road is a dead end road near the end of the airport runway.

   One begins to think one is getting old when you come across an historical road marker about an event in history you can actually remember, but the Marshall Plane Crash is a one of those unfortunate, but historically significant events. I was a college sophomore when the plane crash occurred and it shocked all college sports teams across the country. Then, while I was living in West Virginia south of Huntington, WV is when they made the movie “We Are Marshall” which recalled the events at the time of the accident and the events at the University in attempting to rebuild their football program.

   A chartered jet airliner carrying the Marshall University football team, coaches and a number of prominent Huntington residents crashed in flames on its approach to Tri-State Airport Saturday evening on Nov. 14, 1970. There were no survivors.

   Southern Airways of Atlanta, Ga., said its two-engine DC-9 was carrying 70 passengers and five crewmen. The plane was returning the Marshall football players, most of the coaching staff and a group of supporters from Greenville, N. C., where East Carolina University defeated the Marshall team Saturday afternoon.

   The crash occurred about 7:45 p. m. less than a mile west of Tri-State Airport. Weather conditions were poor and light rain was falling.

   The Herald-Advertiser's Jack Hardin, the first reporter at the scene some 250 yards east of WV Route 75 south of Kenova, said:

   "There's nothing here but charred bodies. It's terrible." Bodies and wreckage were scattered over a wide area. Gov. Arch A. Moore Jr. and Dr. Donald N. Dedmon, Marshall's acting president, rushed to the scene.

   Hardin reported a piece of the plane was found on a hillside about a half-mile from the principal crash site. He said sections of bodies also were reported found there, too. Searchers were combing the hillside early this morning with the aid of flares.

   At 12:10 a. m., the first bodies were placed on National Guard trucks. They were being taken to the National Guard Armory at the airport, where a temporary morgue was established. Hardin said recovery crews were running short of bags to hold the bodies.

   The tragedy was the worst domestic air crash during 1970 and it was described by the FAA as one of the worst in history involving an athletic team.  The crash also was the worst in West Virginia air travel history.

   Less than two months earlier, on October 3, one of two chartered planes carrying the Wichita University football team, coaches, boosters and others, crashed in the mountains of Colorado, killing 31 persons, including 13 football players.  The Marshall crash was the second fatal crash at same the airport in 16 days. Three Army officers were killed in the crash of a military plane Oct. 29. A fourth passenger, critically injured, survived. In the earlier crash, the airplane hit a hill 2,700 feet short of the runway, after apparently losing power in one of its two engines.

   This year marks the 39th anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of 75 members of the Marshall University football team, coaches, staff, community members, and crew. This year, as the University does every year since the tragedy, Marshall's Student Government Association will conduct a memorial service at the memorial fountain which commemorates the tragedy on the campus of Marshall University. The fountain is silenced each Nov. 14 during the annual memorial service honoring the victims of the 1970 Marshall plane crash and remains silent until spring.

   In an interesting personal historical note about Marshall University and the events to rebuild the football program. In a January 10, 2007 article in the Huntington Herald-Dispatch about the movie, “We Are Marshall.” In the movie, they stated that the first coach hired by Marshall to replace Head Coach Rick Tolley who was killed in the plane crash, was not Jack Lengyel but Dick Bestwick, assistant coach at Georgia Tech, he changed his mind after two days and returned to Georgia Tech. What I found interesting about this fact is that Dick Bestwick had been the head football coach during the early 60's at the high school where I graduated in Pennsylvania before he went on to Georgia Tech.

   For more information about the plane crash, visit the WV Historical Site.

Flight of Richard C. duPont, Nelson County, VA

Marker No. W-219

Marker Text: Near this site on September 21, 1933, Richard C. duPont was launched from Afton Mountain in his Bowlus sailplane, Albatross. Four hours and fifty minutes later he landed at Frederick, Maryland, establishing a United States distance record for sail planing of 121.6 miles, almost double the previous U.S. Record of 66 miles.

Location: On Interstate 64 eastbound lanes, on Afton Mountain, at first scenic overlook about 1,500 feet east of the exit for Route 250 and the Skyline Drive. This marker is located next to marker W-218 (Rockfish Gap Meeting)

Erected by the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission in 1983.

   Richard Chichester duPont was a member of the prominent Delaware duPont family. Born in 1911 to Alexis F. duPont and Mary Chichester, his father was the vice-president of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. Richard developed an interest in aviation at an early age.

   He started piloting gliders in 1929. By this time he had already logged some 1,000 hours as an airplane pilot. He learned skills for flying gliders through the Soaring Society of America at Elmira, N.Y. While at the University of Virginia (only about 20 miles from this marker) he founded a campus soaring club. He studied aviation in 1932 at Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute while in the same year with his sister, Alice flew a open-cockpit airplane up the Amazon River.

   Following a soaring meet in Elmira, N.Y. Richard du Pont was discouraged by few days of favorable winds for soaring and he and others thought there had to be other soaring sites in the eastern U.S. He had been studying maps and he was certain the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia offered an ideal solution for an alternative soaring site. To test his theory Dick duPont invited other pilots to an informal meet centering at the Swannanoa Country Club near Waynesboro, atop the Blue Ridge in western Virginia. On September 20, 1933, Emerson Mehlhose of Wyandotte, Michigan took off from Rockfish Gap in a wind that nearly tore his wings off, soared up the Shenandoah Valley 71 mi. for a new U. S. distance record. (Old record: 66.7 mi., by Martin Schempp, from Elmira, N.Y..) Richard duPont on the next day started on Afton Mountain at Rockfish Gap, he passed Mehlhose's landing place, kept on soaring, crossed the Maryland line, started to head into Pennsylvania when rain and fog forced him back to Frederick, MD, a distance of 121.6 mi. — 14 mi. short of the world record.

   The sailplane that Richard duPont used on his record breaking flight was his Bowlus sailplane, Albatross. This sailplane was designed and built by William Hawley Bowlus who was quite well known as a sailplane designer from San Fernando, California. Mr. Bowlus was the Superintendent of Construction on Charles Lindbergh's aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis. He also gave gliding lessons to both Charles and Anne Lindbergh. William Hawley Bowlus is probably better widely known in non-aviation circles for his key role in the design of Airstream travel trailers.

   Richard with his brother, Felix established All American Aviation Company an airmail service eventually covering parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. Six years after Richard's death, the air service began passenger service and become Allegheny Airlines, which was the precursor to today's US Airways. I remember the old Allegheny Airline planes on trips to the old Pittsburgh airport. These were the days prior to airport security where you went through the gate walked across the tarmac, up the stairs into the plane, generally all outside regardless of the weather.

   During World War II, the U.S. established the American Guilder Program. Richard duPont was special assistant to General “Hap” Arnold and placed in charge of the glider program after the death of director Lewin B. Barringer. During a demonstration flight on September 11, 1943 at March Air Field in California, duPont and other passengers were killed in a MC-1 glider. William H. Bowlus who was also a passenger managed to parachute out to safety before the glider crashed.

   Richard's brother, Major Felix duPont succeeded him in the glider program. This marker is in the approximate area for the start of his flight in 1933 and is close to the southern entrance to the Skyline Drive.

   Both Richard C. duPont and William H. Bowlus were inducted in the Soaring Hall of Fame in Elmira, N.Y.