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Each month, we’ll throw a dart at a map and write about where it lands. LOCATION: 7400 S. Tryon St.
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Scarred Ground
THE FOREST behind Rod of God Ministries, on South Tryon Street in the Olde Whitehall neighborhood, is peaceful, thick with pine trees, and pocked with hoofprints. Every few minutes, the deafening rumble of an airplane drowns out the bird chirps and serves as a reminder of something horrific that happened here nearly 47 years ago. Just after 7:30 a.m. on Sept. 11, 1974, the pilots of an Eastern Airlines flight from Charleston were distracted by conversation, hit patchy fog, and missed the runway at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. They crashed into a cornfield in what’s now this forest. Sixty-nine of the 82 aboard died at the
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scene. Three more died in the days that followed. It remains the deadliest aviation accident in Charlotte history. Three of the victims were the father and two brothers of comedian Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’ The Late Show. Colbert was 10 at the time, and he has said his deep grief at such an early age led him to a career in comedy. A decade after the crash, the Rev. Larry and Bonnie Allen, co-pastors of Rod of God Ministries, bought a big piece of land that included the overgrown cornfield and forest where the Eastern plane went down. On a recent, warm afternoon, Bonnie Allen gazes into the woods from the parking lot. “There’s nothing left back
there,” she says. Still, people still come by periodically to tromp through the overgrown brush and weave through trees to see if they can spot the wreckage, she says. A few times, family members of those who died in the crash have come through. Last year, a group of pilots showed up. Bonnie Allen turns her head toward the traffic whizzing by on four-lane South Tryon Street, which was just a small country road surrounded by fields and farmland in 1974. “Can you just imagine the mayhem that took place when that happened?” she asks. “The fire trucks? The police? Can you imagine the dirt that just sucked up blood? That was right here.” —Cristina Bolling
SHAW NIELSEN; CRISTINA BOLLING
A tranquil forest obscures what remains of the deadliest plane crash in Charlotte history
