The First Public Hearing

Abstract

At 3:57 P.M. on October 31, 1994, only 53 days after the Flight 427 disaster, another US airliner—American Eagle Airlines Flight 4184—fell from the sky. The plane crashed upside down into farmland near Roselawn, Indiana. As was the case with Flight 427, the pilots of American Eagle 4184 made no coherent emergency call to alert controllers to their plight. Again, investigators were furiously scratching their heads immediately after the crash. Another perfectly good airplane, this time a French-built ATR-72 turboprop less than two years old, had fallen without warning. Sixty-four passengers plus the two pilots and two flight attendants died instantly.