A Night of Pro Performance by WDCR
WDCR disk jockey Paul Gambaccini '70 and newsman-general manager Jeff Kelley '69 had just settled down to 39 hours of continuous broadcasting, a Harvard Weekend marathon for the student radio station's "Let's Help" charity project.
Kelley was reading his first hourly newscast Friday evening when Program Director Dave Prentice '69 answered a phone call downstairs in the station's business office. Had a plane crashed in the area? Possibly in Etna or Canaan?
It had, though nobody knew it at the time. A Northeast Airlines FH-227 twinengined airliner en route to Lebanon airport with 42 aboard had collided into Moose Mountain in Etna.
The tragedy struck hard at the community, taking among others, the life of Music Department Chairman L. Milton Gill. But WDCR's calm, sensitive reporting of the disaster was one of the station's finest hours, of immeasurable help in heading off the panic that might have been created by the incident.
After the phone call, Prentice dashed to the Hanover police station. The police, listening to their short wave radio, confirmed that an accident had occurred, "probably" on Moose Mountain.
Meanwhile, Kelley had called the Lebanon Regional Airport and received the same information. As station members crowded the studios, Kelley dispatched two carloads of reporters to the crash site, sent others to Hanover's Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and to local police stations. Then he broke in on the regular programming with his first bulletin of the evening, the first news the world was to receive of the tragedy.
Though WDCR's quick reporting had soon alerted the entire area, for Technical Director Fred Klein '69 the crash came as a surprise. Klein was just returning from Boston with several thousand dollars worth of new tape recorders when he came within the station's broadcast range. Within minutes he had unloaded one machine at the station, pasted the preamplifier into a brand new portable unit, and headed to the hospital to begin taping voice reports.
At Moose Mountain the remote crew split up. Bob Throndson '69, WDCR's sales director, filed the first broadcast report from the base of the mountain. Elsewhere Prentice, armed with a portable FR transmitter, Dave Graves '70, Scott Hanson '70, and Creighton Fricek '70, determined to climb the mountain to the crash site.
"While Dave and Scott reported back to WDCR via the FM unit," Prentice recalls, "Creighton and I managed to climb aboard a 4-wheel-drive pickup truck which was just turning around, readying to make the ascent again up a logging road. Governor John King was one of the many passengers.
"The logging road consisted of about a mile and a half of mud and ruts; from there we had to climb up the mountain on foot for another mile and a half.
"The first thing I saw at the site was the silhouette of the tail section of the plane, visible in the dim light from the rescuers' torches. Nearby was the left wing of the Yellowbird and everywhere there was the smell of smoke and the sight of small fires."
Back in town, WDCR had been converted to a nerve center for the many newsmen who converged on Hanover. Kelley "fed" radio and television stations all over the country with audio voice reports. At the same time, he and Gambaccini had the difficult task of tracking down rumors that poured into the station and simultaneously answering calls from disturbed listeners who wanted information about the casualties. Since the full casualty list was not to be available until well into the morning hours, the queries had to be handled very gingerly.
WDCR's "firsts" that night will never be fully tallied. From the earliest word of the crash, the station was far ahead of any other news source in reporting the developments. Much more impressive than its speed, however, was the station's accuracy and sensitivity, especially in view of the tasteless sensationalism coming out of Boston. Kelley personally embargoed names of victims when there was no clear indication next of kin had been notified, even though the names had been officially released by Northeast authorities. At the same time he deftly squelched the unavoidable but false rumors that kept making the rounds. As a result, WDCR stood as the area's only authoritative source for information about the crash and provided a calming voice for the entire community.
Though it was overshadowed by the tragedy, the reason for the marathon was to aid the "Let's Help" project, which this year is raising funds for the Lebanon, N. H. and Hartford, Vt. Project ABC programs. Kelley and Gambaccini donated all their fees for the voice reports to the project and, though both were thoroughly exhausted by the ordeal, carried out their 39-hour marathon to its announced conclusion. - C. O. K.
