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 Harrisburg Evening News, 25 July 1947:
TWO KILLED IN GRATZ PLANE CRASH
Pilot, Former WAVE Die as Ship Falls and Burns on Midnight Trip
GRATZ, 25 July [1947] — While the fiancee of the pilot waited at the airport for them to finish a short midnight pleasure ride, a Schuylkill Cunty man and woman burned to death early today in the wreckage of their plane which crashed shortly after taking off from the Gratz Airport.
The victims were identified by Dr. S. 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 in his new three-lace Piper. Later Miss Koppenhaver declined a ride and Miss Willier left with Savidge on the fatal trip.
Hear Scream
As Miss Koppenhaver was seated in their car, she heard a passerby scream: “That plane just fell.”
She and others left the scene, but was in a group that missed the site of the crash 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 about 12:10 a.m., a few minutes 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 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.
Served as WAVE
Miss Willier is survived by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. James M. Willier, Hegins, and a sister, Mrs. Betty Diehl, Pottstown. A clerk in the Hegins National 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 at Hegins while preparing his own bearing business near Reading.
Ptts. Edwarrd 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 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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