During a quite evening in 1962 John Nash, the Cumberland Municipal Airport manager and fixed base operator, had to leave the airport for a few hours during a period of low activity and left the field control to James Abe. The young teenager’s duties were simply to answer the telephone and to turn on the runway lights, if requested by any airborne aircraft. About 10:30 PM the telephone rang and an air traffic controller informed Jim that a TWA Airliner was having an in-flight emergency and was in the process of making a landing at the nearest airfield, that being the Cumberland Airport. Abe informed the Cumberland Police and Fire Departments who proceeded to the airport to standby for any emergency situation.
The aircraft, a Martin 404 twin-engine airliner with a load of passengers, had lost the use of one engine and was on final approach to land on runway 24, with its runway length slightly in excess of one mile. In any emergency of this kind, and especially at night on an unfamiliar airport with a twin engine airplane, pilots often add five or more knots airspeed to their approach air speed, as a safety factor against unexpected obstacles. However, the Martin 404 was known as an aircraft that, with excessive airspeed, would float quite a bit upon round out for landing. As a consequence, the Martin 404 did not touchdown until mid-way down the runway. With heavy braking the airplane finally stopped at the end of runway 24. With the forward motion finally under control the nose wheel had run off the end of the pavement into the dirt portion of the overrun. By using reverse propeller thrust from power on the remaining good engine and nose wheel power steering, the pilot was able to slowly back the airplane onto the hard surface and taxi to a safe parking area. The passengers deplaned into the small terminal building, many with drinks in hand, and then came the realization that they were not at their planned destination at Washington’s National Airport. With Jimmy Abe as their host, and after much confusion arrangements were made by TWA to bus the passengers to Washington, DC.
The TWA Martin 404 undergoing an engine change after landing at Cumberland.
The following day the aircrew of the airliner, upon viewing the town of Wiley Ford, West Virginia and the mountain beyond runway 24’s over run, were visibly concerned about what could have been the result had they not been able to stop as they did on the previous night. In the daylight hours the TWA pilots realized how lucky they were and had second thoughts about their high airspeed during their emergency approach into Cumberland. Today runway 24 is no longer used, being replaced with runway 5-23 which has clearer approaches but with a slightly shorter runway length.
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Wings Over Cumberland 