50 Years Ago  From the Vineyard Gazette editions of September,
1957:  Tragedy struck in many places, including the Vineyard, on
Sunday night when a Northeast airliner, bound from the Vineyard
to New Bedford, plunged into the North Dartmouth swamps a half-
mile from her runway at the municipal airport, carrying ten
persons to their death and injuring all others aboard, some of
them critically. Twenty-one passengers, two-thirds of them well
known summer colonists of the Island, and three crew members
were aboard the plane, none escaping painful injury.  Nothing in
the memory of living persons has so stricken the city with
horror as this first calamity at the municipal airport, nor has
anything in recent history called out such an army of people of
every status, who appeared on the scene with a sincere desire to
be of assistance. For its part, the Vineyard is sadly stricken
and shocked, the tragedy involving many summer families and
their visitors.  The big plane was en route from Boston to New
York, having taken