Crash of TWA Flight 128

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Historical Marker #2344 in Boone County remembers the tragic crash of TWA Flight 128 on November 20, 1967.

Trans World Airlines Flight 128 was a domestic flight scheduled to depart Los Angeles, California, and make stops at the Greater Cincinnati Airport (now known as the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport) and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, en route to Boston, Massachusetts. However, a disastrous crash at its first stop ended the lives of sixty-five passengers and five crew members. Ten passengers and two of the crew miraculously survived the tragedy. Included in deaths were local attorney Andrew Clark and his wife Clementine, and Covington banking executive William Grimm and his wife Helen.

Flight 128 was a Convair 880 jetliner. Its attempt to land in bad weather conditions, in the dark, and on a runway that did not yet have approach lights caused the aircraft to fall short of the intended runway and pitch into a group of orchard trees and collide with the ground on the farm of B. S. Wagner.

At the time of the crash of Flight 128, it was the worst air disaster on Kentucky soil. Two years earlier, American Airlines Flight 383 had also crashed on approach to the Greater Cincinnati Airport taking 58 lives.