Later this month, Kentuckians will mark the 7th anniversary of the crash of Comair Flight 5191 at the Bluegrass Airport in Lexington. The August 27th accident took the lives of every passenger on board the plane, 49 in all, plus two crew members.
Despite the magnitude of that tragedy, it was not the worst air disaster in Kentucky history. That distinction belongs to TWA Flight 128, which crashed in Hebron, Kentucky on November 20th, 1967 as it attempted to land at the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport. The mishap killed 70 people but 12 survived.
One of them was Bob Hart of Ashland. He was 42-years-old that fateful day. He was seated near the tail of the plane and recalled the accident last week for Ashland city commissioners…
Hart is 88-years-old today. The World War Two veteran says doesn’t know why his life was spared but is grateful that it was. Hart says he has never been afraid to fly and isn’t today. The only thing that bothers him now, he says, is all the security checks required to board a plane.