FIERY CRASH

April 1980
P-3 Orien
cuts tramway cable

This is the very tramway
Darrell Oman rode to
take photo of Kawishiwi
far below in the harbor


The P-3 Orion antisubmarine aircraft made two passes over the Fagatogo malae at about 9:53am. dropping six skydivers from the Army’s Tropical Lightning Parachute club in Hawaii to the delight of the several thousand spectators gathered there for the event.

On the third pass, the four-engine aircraft struck the long tramway cable between Mount Alava and Solo Hill, veered to starboard and crashed in the small yard adjacent to the west wing of the hotel.

The plane instantly burst into flames and destroyed the entire 78-room wing of the 186-room hotel. Tony Brown, manager of the hotel, estimated damages at between three and four million dollars. He said the hotel’s coffee shop was also damaged by the flames but would be operational within "a few days".

History
A paved road beyond the library winds up to the former cable-car terminal on Solo Hill. Built in 1965 to carry technicians to the TV transmitters on Mount Alava, the cableway across Pago Pago Harbor was once the longest single-span aerial tramway in the world. In 1980, a U.S. Navy plane struck the cables during an air show, killing the six-man crew and two people on the ground. Rebuilt, the cableway was again destroyed by Hurricane Val in 1992. At last report, a US$3 million federal grant had been obtained to repair the cableway in time for American Samoa's centennial in the year 2000. There's an excellent view of Rainmaker Mountain from the former terminal above Utulei

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