In 1947, three accidents involved the Gratz Airport, Gratz, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Two of the accidents were fatal. The second accident occurred in July 1947. Shortly after pilot David Savidge took off from the Gratz Airport, with one passenger, for a late evening ride, the plane went down in flames in the vicinity of Specktown Road in Lykens Township, Dauphin County. Both the pilot and passenger, Mary Willier were killed.
There was wide regional newspaper coverage of the crash. From the Lykens Standard, 1 August 1947:
Two Are Killed in Crash At Gratz Airport
While the fiancee of the pilot waited at the airport for them t finish a short midnight pleasure ride, a Schuylkill County man and woman burned to death early Friday morning in the wreckage shortly after taking off from Gratz Airport.
The victims were identified by Dr. E. E. Herrold, Lykens, deputy coroner as: David M. Savidge, 29, of Fountain, and Miss Mary Willier, 29, Hegins.
Doctor Herrold said the bodies were burned beyond recognition. Both were trapped in the wreckage, according to other fliers who witnessed the crash, about two miles west of the airport.
Waiting at the field was Miss Ruth Koppenhaver of Valley View, who was to have married Savidge. She, Savidge and Miss WIllier, close friends who had gone to high school and college together, arrived at the airport about midnight, according to relatives.
Savidge, who had been flying since 1936, first took a short trip alone in his new three-place Piper. Later, Miss Koppenhaver declined a ride, and Miss WIllier left with Savidge on the fatal trip.
As Miss Koppenhaver was seated in their car, she heard a passerby scream: “That plane just fell.”
She and others left for the scene, but was in a group that missed the site of the crashed and learned about the deaths when she returned to the field.
According to airport attendants, the field was lighted for night flying and other students and instructors were there at the time. The accident happened around 12:10 a.m., a few minuted after the plane took off. It crashed in a clover field on the nearby Sitlinger farm.
Elvin K. Troutman, Penbrook, a brother-in-law, said Savidge used the plane for local flights several times a week.
Both Savidge and Miss Willier were graduates of Hegins High School and a Bowling Green, Kentucky, commercial college. Miss Koppenhaver was a schoolmate at both places.
Mill Willier is survived by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. James M. Willier, Hegins, and a sister, Miss Betty Diehl, Pottstown. A clerk in the Hegins Natonal Bank, she served three years as a WAVE during the war. She enlisted in 1943 and was discharged in January, 1946, at Bainbridge, Maryland.
Savidge is survived by his father, Jonas Savidge, of Hegins R.D.; a brother Charles Savidge, of Fountain; and a sister, Mrs. Troutman. Employed by the American Bearing Company, Indianapolis, during the war, he was working recently with the Otto coal Company of Hegins while preparing own bearing business near Reading.
Pvtse. Edward Fagnani, Harrisburg, and R. W. Homan, Lykens, were conducting a State Police investigation.
Bodies of the victims were taken to funeral homes in Hegins.
Miss Willier was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star and the Lutheran Church in Hegins. Savidge was a member of Masonic and Shrine groups of Indianapolis and the Lutheran and Reformed Church.
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News article from Newspapers.com.
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