American Flyers Airline
The airline was an offshoot of a pilot training enterprise which remains in business as of 2024 as American Flyers.American Flyers was a dba for the aviation activities of Reed Pigman starting January 1941, in particular flight training.[7] The Reed Pigman era came to an abrupt end 22 April 1966 when, because of a medical condition he kept hidden that would have disqualified him as a commercial airline pilot, Pigman, flying as captain, crashed an AFA Electra at Ardmore causing the deaths of himself and 82 other people.[15] On 31 July 1967, Virginia Pigman, widow of Reed, sold 80% of AFA to First Grant Corporation, a subsidiary of Pittsburgh Coke & Chemical, itself then a subsidiary of The Hillman Company,[16][14] the investment vehicle of Henry Hillman, a prominent Pittsburgh investor.It was determined that Reed Pigman had hidden a long history of heart disease and more recent history of diabetes from the doctors who certified him as fit to fly as a commercial airline pilot and that, while flying an AFA Lockheed Electra (N183H) military charter flight enroute from Monterey Regional Airport in California to Columbus Airport in Georgia on approach to Ardmore airport on April 22, 1966, he suffered a "coronary insufficiency" leading to the crash of the aircraft and the death of all five crew, one non-paying passenger (an AFA employee) and 77 (out of 92) passengers.
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