Christmas plane crash survivors reunite, solve mystery
Courtesy of Velvet Siegel
The wreckage of the light plane is loaded on a truck on Dec. 26, 1971, in the picture by an unknown photographer.
Courtesy of Velvet Siegel
Andy and Velvet Siegel, foreground, pose with their children, son-in-law and two of their seven grandchildren.
Courtesy of Warren Spiker
Warren and Jeri Spiker, far left, pose with their children, children’s spouses and grandchildren.
Parker Burroughs/For the Observer-Reporter
On Nov. 6, survivors of the crash landing of a light plane on Dec. 25, 1971, met at the scene of the accident in Donaldsons Crossroads with Scott Patton, who was the police officer first to respond. From left are Velvet Siegel, Geraldine “Jeri” Spiker, Warren Spiker and Patton. The concrete post in the foreground once supported a streetlight that was struck by the plane’s wing.
On a crisp Saturday afternoon in early November, a small group of gray-haired people gathered in the northwest corner of the Donaldsons Crossroads Shopping center parking lot for an unusual reunion.
Three of those people – Warren and Geraldine Spiker and Velvet Siegel – had been there once before, 50 years ago. That’s when they crawled out or were carried out of the wreckage of a small plane on Christmas night, 1971.
Joining them was Scott Patton, on that night a Peters Township police officer who was first on the scene of the crash. Patton wrote his account of the events in the first installment of this story, published in Tuesday’s Observer-Reporter. He had contacted the survivors to ask for their recollections of the accident, and the Spikers suggested the Nov. 6 get-together when they would be in the area visiting family.
On that night half a century ago, Willis Voshell, 49, was piloting the plane. Aboard were his daughters Velvet, 10, and Geraldine (Jeri), 17, and her boyfriend, Warren Spiker, 20. (They would marry a few years later.) En route from Connellsville to Morgantown, W.Va., the plane strayed wildly off course and Voshell was forced to land in the shopping center parking lot when the plane ran out of fuel. All survived after the plane touched down safely but then struck the pole of an unlit streetlamp.
Patton never knew why the pilot mysteriously strayed so far off course, nor did he know what had ever become of the survivors. But in this part of the story, the three recount the event in their own words and solve that mystery.
Home for Christmas
Warren, who graduated from German Township High School in 1970, was serving in the U.S. Air Force at Dover AFB in Delaware when he met Jeri.
WARREN: I was scheduled to work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Christmas Day. I went to my girlfriend’s house to have lunch with her and her family when her father offered to fly us back to Uniontown, so I could visit with my friends and family.
I went back to work, but my civilian supervisor said that since it was so slow that I could take the rest of the shift off. I changed my clothes and went back and learned that Jeri’s little sister, Velvet, would be coming with us.
VELVET: All the presents were opened, our big Christmas lunch was done, and the skies were bright and clear. If Warren and Jeri were flying, I wanted to go, too. Even though it was Christmas Day, I never missed an opportunity to fly with Dad. I knew my toys would be there when I got back.
WARREN: We went to a small airstrip where Willis kept his Beechcraft Musketeer, loaded up and took off for Pennsylvania. Everything went fine on the trip; it was early afternoon and the mountains were covered with snow. We landed at the small Connellsville airport an hour’s drive from my mother’s house (in Masontown).
VELVET: After a nice visit with Warren’s family and friends, we returned to the airport and discovered the fuel pumps locked and the airport deserted. Dad acknowledged that he should have filled up when we landed, when there was an attendant. He checked the map for the next closest airport.
WARREN: After we took off for Morgantown, there were several different conversations between Willis, Morgantown and other airports in the area, all trying to locate us and guide us. Several times throughout our flight, each of the airports would turn on their strobes and ask if we could see any of their airport lights. We had run critically short on fuel by this time.
VELVET: He was so calm. I will never forget how calm we all were in that plane. I wasn’t even scared. My dad was in control, and I trusted that he would get us down safely. We all knew what we were looking for: those blue parallel lines of lights, but they were just nowhere to be found. Yes, we were all praying – not out loud, but I know we were all praying, “Lord, show us the runway.” It was dark, and from the sky you cannot tell a field from the woods.
WARREN: When Willis realized we were very close to running out of fuel, he spotted a shopping center with rows of lights on, and since it was Christmas night the parking lot was empty of vehicles. He circled the lot to determine which direction to approach for our landing. I called out on the radio, “Mayday! Mayday! This is Beechcraft Musketeer N23797, we are going down!”
VELVET: He just said “Mayday” into the radio! You say that when you are going to crash. Suddenly, the reality hit me. Dad cannot fix this. We are going down.
The engine sputtered and stopped. The silence was deafening, and I started to cry, silently. “Brace yourselves,” Dad said and Jeri pulled me over, placing my head in her lap and covering me with her arms and upper body.
WARREN: We were gliding down toward the parking lot to land when we struck something with the right wing. We would later find out it was a light pole that had a burned-out bulb that we never did see. The plane skidded across the parking lot maybe 40 yards before coming to a stop.
JERI: We were going really fast when we hit that post.
WARREN: It was after determining the extent of everyone’s injuries that we decided we needed to get out of the plane. Since I was in the co-pilot’s seat, I tried opening the airplane door. I pushed several times and bumped the door with my shoulder, but it would not open. Willis instructed me to lean forward so that he could try kicking the door, which finally opened after several kicks.
VELVET: Warren did have a serious head injury and frantically ran from the plane toward the road. I remember thinking to myself, “we just survived this and now he’s going to get hit by a car!” He was obviously in shock. Dad’s face was bleeding profusely, but he was able to get out of the plane.
WARREN: I climbed down the hill to the highway and tried to summon help from the traffic. I am not sure how many vehicles came by, slowed down and then sped off.
JERI: I knew it was my back right away. Yes I broke my back, but I wasn’t the most injured.
WARREN: It was then that a policeman showed up, and very soon after this the ambulances showed up.
VELVET: Dad helped me climb over Jeri’s legs to get out of the plane. Three of us literally walked away from the accident. Jeri had to wait for the paramedics, who put a neck collar one her and somehow removed my sister from that tiny plane on a backboard.
We were all placed in one ambulance, which was very crowded. I remember a paramedic handing me a plastic basin when I was nauseous, but I was the least of their concerns at the time, with just a bruised and bloody nose, that’s all.
At the hospital, they were trying to decide what to do with me, a 10-year-old little girl who had no medical need and no family nearby to take care of her. One of the paramedics offered to take me home to his family. I was glad when the hospital staff allowed me to stay in the same room with my sister, but I will never forget the kindness of that paramedic.
JERI: I had compression fracture of my vertebrae, but there was no damage to my spinal chord. Warren was transferred to another hospital and had to undergo surgery. I had to wear a metal brace from my shoulder to my hip until June, or about six months. I couldn’t get out of bed without help with that brace on. It was very difficult, and I was a senior in high school.
To fly, or not to fly
Warren Spiker suffered a concussion when his head struck the dashboard on impact. He underwent surgery when doctors detected swelling on his brain. A metal plate was installed in his skull, and to this day a scar is still faintly visible running down his forehead and across his right eyelid.
But the accident did not spook him from flying; he would retire from the Air Force after a long career. Nor did pilot Willis Voshell shy away from the skies. He would acquire another airplane and encourage his daughters to fly with him. But they did not share his enthusiasm.
JERI: Dad broke his nose, but he was back to it. He told us we had to get back on a plane, but …
(About a year later, Willis was flying Warren home again and told Jeri that if she didn’t want to say goodbye to him then, she would have to fly with them.)
I remember I was gripping the edge of my seat, and tears were running down my face.
I won’t let that fear ruin my life. I am not a fan of flying, but I will when it’s necessary. Sometimes turbulence disturbs me and I can start hyperventilating. I’m not a huge fan.
VELVET: Dad soon got another plane and insisted I go up with him. He explained to me that it is important to go back up and not let the accident keep me from flying. But when I did go up with him, I realized I had no love of flying; it was gone. The magical innocence of soaring above the clouds had been replaced by the harsh reality that if something goes wrong, you cannot just pull over somewhere and fix it.
A mystery solved
Willis Voshell set a compass course for flying to Morgantown in the dark. Although the compass indicated he was flying south-southwest, he was not. Instead, the plane drifted westward across a landscape obscured by darkness. What happened?
VELVET: When we finally left the hospital, my dad insisted on going to see the plane. The wings had been removed in order to tow it to the junkyard, but we were able to look inside. When we did, Dad believed he knew why we ended up in nearly the opposite direction of where we intended to be.
My mom had given Dad (I think for Christmas, actually) a flashlight with a magnet on the side of it for him to use when flying at night. Dad very conveniently stuck that magnetic flashlight on the dashboard of the plane, just a few inches from the compass in the center of the dash.
WARREN: It was the flashlight with the magnet on it that caused us to go off course.
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For Scott Patton, the fact that no one was killed – in the plane or on the ground – was a miracle. Had the parking lot not come into view, the plane might have gone down in woods or in a neighborhood with possibly tragic consequences.
VELVET: It really was a miracle, with God’s hand of protection all over us. It occurred to me recently that had Dad gone ahead and refueled when we arrived in Pennsylvania, and then we took off in the dark with a full tank of gas and the flashlight positioned dangerously close to the compass, where could we have ended up? Over the ocean? Into a mountain? Who knows?
WARREN: It was truly a Christmas miracle that we all survived with just the injuries that were sustained. However, the true miracle that resulted from that evening would be our son and daughter and our six grandchildren.
Velvet and her husband, Andy Siegel, have a few miracles of their own – five children and seven grandchildren.
Had Warren and Jeri and Velvet not survived, 20 other souls would not exist today.
“So,” Velvet said, “this incident that nearly cost us our lives was a great cause for Thanksgiving in 1971 and ever since.”