Film pays homage to TWA Flight 260 victims

In 2005, Ginny Campbell was scaling the Dragon’s Tooth pinnacle in the Sandia Mountains when she reached the Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 260 crash site.

“It was really surreal to be standing on the ground where three of my family members lost their lives — along with 13 other people,” she said in a phone interview.

Fifty years earlier, on Feb. 19, 1955, Campbell was 21 months old when her father, William Campbell, and grandparents, Alfred and Dorothy Schoonmaker, were flying from Albuquerque to Santa Fe.

A few minutes after takeoff, co-pilot Ivan Spong said “all was well aboard the ship” then was never heard from again, according to an article in the Feb. 21, 1955, Albuquerque Tribune. Minutes later, the Martin 404 plane crashed into the mountains. Multiple rescue teams were involved in the search. Some even rode up the mountain on pack mules. But it was too late.

“Teams of searchers coming down from the rugged mountain peaks said there was no sign of life and no possibility of survivors,” the Tribune reported.

The probable cause of the crash was “a deviation from the prescribed flight path for reasons unknown,” according to a Civil Aeronautics Board report.

To honor the crash victims and those involved in the search for the passengers, Campbell helped put together a one-hour documentary titled “A Beautiful Place.” The film explores people’s emotional journeys and stages of dealing with tragedies like the plane crash, according to a film news release.

“You have to deal with your grief and not bury it,” Campbell said.

“A Beautiful Place” will be shown at a Saturday screening at the Albuquerque International Sunport. While the show is sold out, three other screenings will take place on June 5-6 at the TWA Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

All the proceeds will go to the rescue council and museum.

“Our organization, the Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Council, would not have formed if it weren’t for this crash back in 1955,” said Duke Pigott, council vice president. “So, this tells our story as well. We’re also an all-volunteer organization and we have to raise all the money for our operations ourselves. And so, we’re very, very thankful for the producer and director to donate the proceeds to our organization. It’s a huge help to us and our continued operation.”

‘I finally knew the facts’

It took Campbell decades to get answers about the crash.

Campbell said her mother did not talk about the incident.

“I think it was too painful for her to have three children in 1955 and navigate the world at that time without her husband,” she said.

Others told Campbell “how lucky I was to be too young to remember,” she said.

In 2005, during a trip to the Sandia Peak Tramway, Campbell said her aunt asked if anyone had information about TWA Flight 260. 

“And it so happens that Hugh Prather (a retired educator who was captivated by the crash) left his contact information in case a family member of a crash victim ever came up and inquired,” she said. “So my aunt got in contact with Prather who gave lot of information that we didn’t have. And then within a couple weeks, I learned about 99% of the crash that I hadn’t known until well into my 50s.

“It was great because I finally knew the facts versus what my mind had imagined.”

Along with providing the Campbell family with information, Prather suggested that a memorial be built honoring the victims. This took place in 2006 at the old TWA Ambassador’s Lounge, now the Sandia Vista conference room on the second floor at the Sunport.

A year ago, when Campbell posted photos about the 70th anniversary of the crash, film director Sue Vicory said, “I just sort of randomly said we should make a film about it.”

Vicory and Campbell, the film’s executive producer, came out to Albuquerque and returned to the crash site where they conducted interviews, Vicory said.

“Albuquerque was just a lovely community of welcoming people, inviting us to dinner and all of that, so it has been a pretty cool process,” Vicory said.

Campbell said the premise of the story starts out with the TWA tragedy, “but we’ve tried to make this a universal documentary since everybody has gone through loss and grief.”

“Some under more horrific circumstances, but it’s still loss and grief,” Campbell said. “So hopefully, this will be a movie that will touch people no matter what area in life that they come from and help them to navigate through this difficult journey.”

Campbell, a family medicine doctor in the Kansas City area, said she has heard “people remember things that have been so deeply repressed their whole lives and then having to come to terms when it’s staring them right in the face.”

“But the only way you heal is to acknowledge (it) and then you can deal with it,” she said.

After the film showings, Campbell said she and Vicory will reach out to PBS stations in Albuquerque and Kansas City about airing the documentary.

Gregory R.C. Hasman is a general assignment reporter and the Road Warrior. He can be reached at ghasman@abqjournal.com or 505-823-3820.