I love it when some small, seemingly innocuous, object I’ve collected reminds me that it’s not just “mine,” that it belongs to a much larger story. Sometimes I know that Big Picture story, other times I don’t; here’s a case that illustrates the latter.

Recently, Rollie Puterbaugh contacted me, through the Collectors’ Quest Community, about adding scans of one of my travel and tourism ephemera items to his website. The specific item he was interested in was the laminated in-flight instruction card for TWA’s Convair 880 jet and he wanted to add the image to his project, the Flight 383 & 128 Memorial Project.

I’d never made the connection between that plastic-covered in-flight card and the tragic crash, but once I did, I was only too happy to have “my” card become part of those stories — especially as the stories are not only historical research and collection of artifacts, but the stories of the people involved in the tragic events, and the project works to create a physical memorial. So I asked Rollie to share some more information about the project and his involvement.

Tell us how you became involved in the memorial project.

In 2005, I gathered my previous research about the accident and began the process of locating the property and property owner where the Boeing 727 had hit the hillside. After “finding” and then gaining access to the property in 2005, I hiked up to the site of the November 8, 1965 crash site of AA Flight 383.

After posting the information on the internet, I was stunned by the inquiries I would receive in the following years from family members of victims and witnesses. I realized that the accident was not well documented because of the number of hits and comments I was receiving on the FOTKI site.

In January 2009, I decided to expand my research and scope on the story of Flight 383. The angle I decided on was the life changing effect this event had on hundreds of people; victims, families, witnesses, and first responders, so I began documenting and gathering data on all these groups. Somehow I gained credibility in Hebron, Kentucky where these accidents occurred and the next thing I knew, I was involved in writing the story of two disasters and attempting to place two memorials in the area to honor the participants of both Flights AA 383 and TWA 128.

Today, I am active with the Flight 383/128 Memorial Group of Hebron, Kentucky in historic research and the pursuit of a memorial to honor all those who were impacted by the Cincinnati aviation events of the 1960’s.

Please understand that at this point the project is a gigantic team effort from people all over the country, including Mark Free (Witness TWA Flight 128), Harvey Pelley (First Responder Flights 383/128), and Linda Holbrook (Telephone operator the night of November 20,1967), who are contributing their stories, images, or time to the effort. It is no longer a one man project…

The members of Flight 383/128 Memorial Group do not want future generations to see just statistics about these calamities and forget the people and events that played out in the “Hills of Hebron” on the nights of November 8,1965 and November 20, 1967. All of them had “stories” that were lost on those fateful Monday nights.

Are there other parts of the story the group is looking for?

People can help simply by contacting us if they had relatives onboard these flights or have any other information about the disasters, including, as in your case, owning items directly related to American Airlines or TWA in the 1960’s {specifically the Boeing 727 and Convair 880 aircraft}.

I am looking for a TWA Sytem TimeTable for the Fall of 1967 and an American Airlines System TimeTable for the Fall of 1965. I am also looking for a Kentucky roadmap from the 1960’s. I am interested in posting the covers and the pages showing the Flight schedule for the flights involved in the air disasters in the Cincinnati area during this period. I would also be interested in purchasing these items if someone was interested in selling them.

If you have personal stories, information and/or items you think Rollie and the Flight 383 & 128 Memorial Project might be interested in, you can message him via his profile in the Collectors’ Quest Community or email him at rollie13@msn.com.

If you’re interesting in the memorial project, you can keep up via the group’s newsletters — and you can support the group with donations. Contributions for a memorial in Hebron, Kentucky to American Airlines Flight 383 and TWA Flight 128 can be made by visiting any local branch of the Bank of Kentucky or by mailing a check made payable to “Flight 383/128 Memorial Project” and mailed to:

The Bank of Kentucky, Inc.
Attention: Joy Wilson
1065 Burlington Pike
Florence Ky 41042

Joy’s phone number is: 859-372-5176.

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Article Tags: airline, airplane, American Airlines, aviation, collecting, ephemera, history, Kentucky, Memorial, tragedies, travel, TWA

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 4:41 am and is filed under collecting fyi, events, interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.