Crash of TWA Flight 694

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Historical Marker #2380 in Boone County commemorates the Crash of TWA Flight 694, which crashed two minutes after takeoff.

Trans World Airlines Flight 694 departed Greater Cincinnati Airport en route to Cleveland, Ohio, at 9:02 a.m. on January 12, 1955. At 9:04 a.m., controllers in the tower saw a flash of fire and smoke rising from the ground about two miles southwest of the tower. Within a short time they learned that the TWA Martin 202A and an unreported DC-3 had collided. There were no survivors.

The Civil Aeronautics Board ruled that the probable cause of the accident was that the DC-3 was operating in the area as unknown traffic and was without clearance. It was owned an operated by the National Carbon Coated Paper Company, a division of Castleton, Inc. in Sturgis, Michigan, and was en route from Battle Creek, Michigan, to Lexington, Kentucky.

Thirteen passengers and crew on Flight 694, including one Kentuckian, and two crew members on the DC-3 were killed. This was the first fatal commercial airplane accident since the airport opened its operations in 1947.