Qualla: National Airlines Flight 2511

National Airlines Flight 2511: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. They were never supposed to be on that plane. On the evening of January 5, 1960, the Boeing 707 that normally flew National Airlines' New York-to-Miami route sat grounded at Idlewild Airport, its cockpit windshield cracked and awaiting an eight-hour repair. The airline split the stranded passengers between two reserve propliners. Seventy-six boarded a Lockheed Electra and arrived in Miami safely. The remaining twenty-nine were assigned to a Douglas DC-6B, designated Flight 2511. Five crew members joined them. None of the thirty-four people aboard would survive the night.

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National Airlines Flight 2511: Into the Carolina Dark

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. Flight 2511 departed Idlewild at 11:52 p.m. and headed south along the Atlantic seaboard. The DC-6B was a sturdy, well-maintained aircraft with 24,836 hours of flight time, powered by four Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines. Pilot Dale Southard, 45, guided the plane through clouds an...

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National Airlines Flight 2511: A Farmer's Field

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. At roughly 2:45 a.m., farmer Richard Randolph heard an engine sputtering, followed by the screech of tearing metal and an explosion. At first light, his teenage son McArthur walked into the fields and discovered wreckage scattered across the farm. Richard drove to the nearest pho...

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National Airlines Flight 2511: The Ghost in Row 7

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. One body was conspicuously absent from the main wreckage field. Julian Frank, a New York City lawyer, was found in Snow's Marsh on the far side of the Cape Fear River. His injuries were unlike anything the coroner had seen in aviation disasters: both legs torn away, wire and bras...

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National Airlines Flight 2511: Dynamite and Dry Cells

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. At a hangar in Wilmington, investigators painstakingly reconstructed 90 percent of the DC-6's fuselage on a wood-and-chicken-wire frame. The forensic evidence was damning. Wire fragments in Frank's body, in nearby seats, and in the carpeting were all low-carbon steel. A severed f...

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National Airlines Flight 2511: An Open Case

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. The CAB's chief investigator, Oscar Bakke, presented these findings to the Senate Aviation subcommittee on January 12, 1960, and the FBI assumed control of the criminal investigation eight days later. Despite the mountain of physical evidence pointing to a bomb beneath Julian Fra...

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