Plane crash recalled 50 years later

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Fifty years after a deadly plane crash on Buck's Elbow Mountain near Crozet, local residents and families of the dead are still seeking clues as to what happened.

Dozens of people, including family members of the 26 people killed in Piedmont Airlines Flight 349, gathered Saturday at a memorial site at Mint Springs Valley Park to share newspaper articles and stories.

Rey Barry, a young radio announcer traveling with rescue workers at the time, said he was the first to come across the wreckage. Now a 72-year-old Charlottesville resident, Barry described the scene with the demolished plane as "littered with bodies. They were all dead."

Not all had died. Phil Bradley, who suffered a severely dislocated hip and was barely able to move, was rescued two days after the crash.

Barry and Bradley talked Saturday about the aftermath of the crash. Barry said Bradley, who was still strapped in his seat after being flung from the plane, told him "Don't step on that stick," as a branch was holding up his chair.

Though Bradley doesn't remember that exchange with Barry, he said he doesn't doubt that Barry is telling the truth.

Bradley was focused on "self-preservation" after realizing everyone else was dead in the nighttime crash. Bradley recalled feeling someone else's leg pressed against him, before noticing "his head wasn't attached."

The plane had taken off from Washington and was scheduled to stop in Charlottesville, Lynchburg and Roanoke. Officials had said a navigational error caused the crash and that a contributing factor may have been mental stress on the part of the 32-year-old pilot.

Bradley, a union representative who had been sitting in the back of the plane, is now an 83-year-old grandfather. He said the horrific experience put into perspective how precious and fragile life is.

"I just wish the young folks today would take their lives more seriously," Bradley said, adding that life isn't just about "drugs, alcohol and sex." People should make good use of their lives, he said.

The experience does not haunt Bradley, he said, though he regularly thinks about what might have happened had he chosen a different seat.

Brandon Shulleeta is a staff writer for the Daily Progress of Charlottesville.