A Vickers Viscount flying the route crashed into a farm in Charles City County, Virginia, on January 18, 1960.

They applied full power to this engine, which caused the craft to enter a circling descent until crashing into trees; at the time of impact it had almost no forward velocity.

Heavy fog had closed many airports throughout eastern Virginia and had blanketed the area when the plane bearing 44 passengers and a crew of four came down on swampland near Sandy Gut, a tributary of the Chickahominy River about 30 miles southeast of Richmond.

James B. Fornasero, pilot; Philip Henry Cullom, first officer; and two hostesses, Diane Margaret O'Donnell and Brigitte Friede Helene Jordt.The crash was attributed to the fact that, as per airline policy, the pilots had delayed arming the engine ice protection systems even though they were flying in icy conditions; causing the 2 engines to lose too much power.

Capital Airlines changed its emergency checklist after the crash, deleting the instruction that pilots were to descend to a warmer climate to relight the systems and instructing them that, provided that correct procedure was followed, the engine could be restarted at any height.