BATSY FRASHIER MCAFEE 1948 - 1950 FLIGHT ATTENDANT DEN I first heard about Batsy when E.P. Lietz emailed me: Hi Jake, Another story. Regarding the Challenger DC-3 that ran off the runway at SLC. The Captain was Bill McChrystal. I was about a 2nd year copilot and not too long after that I checked out as a Captain myself. We were on the last leg of a flight into SLC from either Denver or Billings, don't remember which. The weather at Salt Lake was horrible. We were holding on one leg of the Ogden radio range waiting to see if the weather might come up to minimums before we had to proceed to an alternate. It was night, snowing, the whole nine yards. The stewardess came up into the cockpit, leaned over Bill and put her hand on the arm rest of his seat. She said one of the passengers was sick. I noticed that her hand was jerking and she had trouble holding onto the arm rest. I got the distinct impression that something was seriously wrong. I told Bill I would go back and see what the problem was. I opened the door to the cabin and immediately got a shock. Several other passengers aided by one of our ground people had this guy across two seats holding an oxygen mask to his face. What I could see of his face was very black. He was kicking his legs and jerking his whole body around. I went back up to the cockpit and told Bill that this guy was in serious trouble. Bill called the company and they agreed to let him try an instrument approach into SLC. Of course the weather was below our legal minimums but Bill declared an emergency. We went ahead and made the approach. We were landing south on the north south runway. Bill broke out below the clouds just a few feet to the left of the left side of the runway. I could see it but Bill apparently couldn't. I told him to turn slightly right and then he picked it up. He put it on the ground about half way down the runway. NOW just before we touched down the wind changed from CALM to about 35 knots on our tail directly out of the north. Add to that the runway was covered with ice. There was no way Bill could have stopped that thing. We slid all of the way to the end, hit the boundary fence and tore about a mile of it out of the frozen ground, posts and all. There was a guy in a DeSoto car driving east on the highway. Our left wheel hit him right in the center. We then slid, car, airplane and all across the highway and into the field with one wing almost touching the approach lights at that end of the runway. Just before we hit Bill reached up and turned off all of the cockpit switches. He didn't want a fire. We came to a screeching halt and both of us just sat there. Then Bill reached up to turn on the switches again. He was going to call the company on the radio. I stopped him from doing that. Then he remarked, "There went a promising career. " OK, no one on the airplane was hurt. The four people in the car were severely injured. The company had an ambulance standing by to take care of the sick passenger. It turned out that the passenger was having an epileptic fit. Nothing anyone could have done for him at that time. Actually he had recovered when we hit, got off the airplane and climbed onto a bus. They never even found him for several days after that. It also turned out that we had a registered nurse aboard. She knew what the problem with this guy was but said nothing. At the hearing she said she was not a doctor and did not feel it was her responsibility to diagnose anything. The ambulance picked up the injured people in the car and got them to the hospital very quickly. The very last incident I vividly recall is this. The airplane was standing almost on its nose with the tail in the air. The left gear was gone. My overcoat was hanging on a rack in the tail. I needed that overcoat. It was colder than a mother-in-law's kiss out there. So I climbed the seats just like a ladder. When I got up there the stewardess was standing there behind the last seat crying her head off. Her name was Batsine Frazier, we called her Batsy. I put my arm around her and convinced her no one was hurt, everything was OK, got her to stop crying and then put on my coat. I helped her back toward the cockpit. The only way off that airplane was out of the small door behind the captain's seat. She got out that door and stood on the ground. Just then some JERK said, "My God, you killed everyone in that car. "This just wasn't so but poor Batsy did a little jerking around herself and passed completely out. They got her to a hospital. She stayed there for a couple of days. Then she quit her job and rode a bus back to Denver. I doubt if she ever got on another airplane. Of course hearings and legal procedures continued for the next two or three years. Actually the tower had a major part in all of this. A cold front was just passing through, the runway was covered with ice and we actually had about a 40 knot tailwind. The tower NEVER gave us any of this information. The last word we got was that the runway was OK and the wind was calm. Had that been the case the accident would never have happened. If that cottin pickin nurse had told us the guy was an epileptic it never would have happened. Such is life. OKThat is just exactly as I remember it. As they say in Texas Y'all take care, y'heah!!EP -EP Lietz (8/8/99) WM HENRY "BATS" FRASHIER (Andrew Jackson) was born on 14 Feb 1890 in Athelstan, AR. He died on 04 Nov 1966 in Frashier Family Plot Athelstan, AR. He married OLIVE MAGNOLIA DILLS. She was born on 06 Oct 1900. She died on 29 Oct 1973. Wm Henry "Bats" Frashier and Olive Magnolia Dills had the following children: 1. ANNE LAURA FRASHIER was born on 27 Aug 1924 in Athelstan, AR. She married KNOX E CLARK on 25 Dec 1947. He was born on 20 Sep 1922. 2. ELIZABETH BATSINE FRASHIER was born on 26 Aug 1926 in Athelstan, AR. She married EDWARD WRAY MCASEE. He was born on 24 May 1925. He died on 01 Jan 1994. -http://www.gardenpointcemetery.com/uploads/3/0/2/4/3024668/frashier__andrew___document.html (4/27/14) Nothing at SSDI for her. Found her husband. Nothing at FindAGrave for either. Looks like she is still alive in LBB. She is not on the 7/15/48 CHA Roster. She is in the 1947 and 1948 U of Arkansas yearbooks. Photocopies in Jan 2, 1950 crash folder. Her name often misspelled Frasier. -Jake Lamkins (4/27/14) Started working on the Suicide 3 article for the Fall 2023 issue and found her obituary while checking on her. Elizabeth Batsine McAfee 1926 - 2019 -https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/lubbockonline/name/elizabeth-mcafee-obituary?id=9743264 (9/15/23) January 2, 1950, Salt Lake City, Utah. Challenger Airlines Co. Flight 7. Quote: From CAB Resume' of U. S. Air Carrier Accidents, Calendar year 1950. An instrument approach was made under conditions below company minimums due to seriously ill passenger aboard. Landing was made straight in, on runway 16 having a NNW wind at 10 MPH. Aircraft touched down 2500-3000 feet from head of runway, remaining in a tail-high attitude. Full brakes were used, however, aircraft failed to decelerate sufficiently to stop on remaining 3500-4000 feet, and skidded through boundary fence and across a highway. A car on highway was struck by left nacelle and dragged 40 feet. Copilot, who had been communicating with tower, failed to inform Captain of wind change. Runway was snow covered and slippery. ------------------------------------------ Newspaper articles: The Salt Lake Morning Tribune, Tuesday, January 3, 1950. The Denver Post, Tuesday January 3, 1950. Crew; Captain William McCristoll, of Salt Lake City. Copilot Eldon Leetz, of Salt Lake City. Stewardess, Batsine Frasier of Denver. (All crew members' names are misspelled. Should be McChrystal, Lietz, Frashier.) FLacebook FLIGHT WEST POSTED BATSY FRASHIER MCAFEE 1948 - 1950 FLIGHT ATTENDANT DEN http://FAL-1.tripod.com/Batsy_Frashier_McAfee.html Post your remembrances of her. She quit after her Jan 2, 1950, crash at SLC. See the Fall Frontier News for the story. -Jake Lamkins (9/29/23)