Charley Arnold & Allen Doyle Die In Plane Crash

At Tyler Airport at the time of the take-off, which was about 8 A.M. on January 4, 1966, the weather was very foggy with visibility being approximately 100 to 150 feet, and the ceiling being about 50 feet. On the Kentucky side of the river at the place of the crash, which was about 3,000 feet from the northern end of the runway, where the plane became airborne, the weather was bad, cold and foggy. Visibility was about 50 feet, and the ceiling was about the same. It was not possible, at the place of the crash, to even see the Ohio River, and not possible to see across the river. In the town of Maysville, Kentucky, about two miles from the scene of the crash, it was so foggy that visibility was limited to less than one-half of a city block.

Tyler Airport has no contact tower or weather-reporting facilities. Lunken Airport, near Cincinnati, Ohio, is the closest airport with weather facilities, and Tyler Airport is within Lunken's flight control plan area.

At 7:24 A.M. on January 4, 1966, the pilot, Allen Doyle, called Lunken Airport and talked to Miss Virginia Allen, whose basic duty is to give pre-flight briefing to pilots using the federal airways. Doyle filed a flight plan for a trip from Aberdeen, Ohio, to Daytona Beach, Florida, with a fuel stop at Knoxville, Tennessee, and inquired as to weather conditions along the route. He was advised at approximately 7:30 A.M. on that day that the weather conditions at Lunken were ceiling zero, sky obscured and visibility 1/16 of a mile in a fog. Lunken is located on the bank of the Ohio River, as is the Tyler Airport.