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50th Anniversary of Plane Crash Remembered

By Associated Press

08/07/2016

FALLS CITY, Neb. (AP) — Dozens of friends and family members of the 42 people killed in a plane crash 50 years ago in southeast Nebraska gathered over the weekend.

The remembrance gathering was held Saturday morning at the Richardson County Museum and included a visit to the crash site northeast of Falls City where Braniff Airways Flight 250 crashed the night of Aug. 6, 1966, amid stormy weather. The plane had been flying from Kansas City, Missouri, to Omaha.

All passengers and crew members aboard the plane died, and the crash remains Nebraska's worst commercial airline disaster.

The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the weather for the crash but found the crew could have avoided a storm if it had been alerted about its intensity. The investigation found that wind ripped the plane apart, causing its fin and one of the two smaller wings at the tail to break loose.

The crash site wasn't marked until 2006, when a visit by co-pilot James Hilliker's son, Dan Hilliker, prompted owners of the property to approve and help build a marker.

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