Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 14, 1994                   TAG: 9412140151
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MORRISVILLE, N.C.                                LENGTH: Medium

PLANE CRASH KILLS AT LEAST 15

Flight 3379 was en route from Greensboro to Raleigh-Durham, a flight of 70 miles, when it went down in a rugged, wooded area about 6:40 p.m. It was foggy and a steady drizzle was falling at the time.

It was the second crash of an American Eagle plane in less than two months, but it did not involve one of the ATR planes the airline recently grounded amid concerns over the planes' safety in icy conditions.

David Stanley, who lives near the crash site, said he called 911 after hearing the Jetstream Super 31 crash as it was approaching the airport.

``All of a sudden I heard what sounded like a shotgun go off out my back door,'' he said.

He went to the scene, Stanley said, where the only light visible was coming from small fires amid the wreckage.

Airport spokeswoman Teresa Damiano confirmed that 13 people were dead at the scene. Two others died later.

The plane was approaching the airport in 37-degree weather when it vanished from controllers' radar screens. It went down in a rugged, heavily wooded area just outside the small town of Morrisville, between the cities of Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

It broke into two large pieces, with wreckage scattered over a 500-foot area.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were en route, to the crash site Tuesday night.

Gus Whitcomb, an American Eagle spokesman in Fort Worth, Texas, said the plane's last scheduled maintenance had been Saturday in Nashville.

American Eagle flights have been involved in at least four other fatal crashes in the past seven years, including a 1988 accident in which a plane went down outside the Raleigh-Durham airport after taking off in dense fog. All 12 people aboard that plane were killed.

Tuesday's crash was also the fourth serious airline accident in the United States in the past six months.

Jetstream Super 31 turboprops, the type plane that crashed Tuesday, are used for flights between Raleigh-Durham and Roanoke Regional Airport, according to a spokeswoman in the airline's Roanoke office.

Information about passengers on American Eagle flight 3379 can be obtained by calling (800) 433-7300.

Staff writer Matt Chittum contributed to information to this story.

Keywords:
FATALITY