Camp David crash rumor proves false

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Sep 12, 2001 by Peter Geier

Early reports that an airliner had crashed on or near Camp David, the presidential retreat in Western Maryland's Catoctin Mountains, proved unfounded.

Theresa Hahn, manager of banquet and catering services for Thurmont's Cozy Restaurant, the Camp David haunt of the presidential media retinue, said at mid-morning yesterday that she heard that a plane went down about three miles from Thurmont, in the Catoctin Mountain National Park.

Thurmont is located about three miles east south east of Camp David.

"Lots of fire trucks were on the road and no one can get up there," Hahn said, adding that she had not been able to get through by telephone to an aunt who lives closer to Camp David on the other side of the state park.

However, J. Mel Poole, Catoctin Mountain Park superintendent, said there had been "no crash at Camp David and no crash at Catoctin Mountain Park."

"All the [fire] trucks here in the park are still in station," Poole said early yesterday afternoon.

Nevertheless, the park was closed around noon yesterday as a precaution.

Pamela A. Tokar-Ickes, one of three county commissioners of Somerset County, Pa., subsequently confirmed that a United Airlines airplane crashed in Shanksville, Pa. The commissioner said a 911 call regarding the crash was placed at approximately 10:06 a.m. yesterday morning.

Shanksville is a town with a population of about 235, west of the county seat, Somerset; it is 140 miles from Thurmont and 130 miles from Washington.

In addition to being the place where the 1944 Normandy invasion was planned and presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt have held meetings with foreign dignitaries and guests, Camp David was the scene of the Camp David Accords, signed September 17, 1978, by Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and then-President Jimmy Carter.