On September 23, 1985, Henson Airlines Flight 1517 crashed in Grottoes, Virginia, while on approach to the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport.

At 6:42 pm, Civil Air Patrol located the crash site 6 miles east from the airport.

Flight 1517 struck the southwest face of Hall Mountain at an elevation of 2,400 ft.[1] Zilda Spadaro-Wolan was the first female commercial airline pilot to perish in an airplane crash in the United States.

Factors which contributed to the flightcrew's errors were: (1) the nonstandardized navigational radio systems installed in the airline's Beech 99 fleet; (2) intracockpit communication difficulties associated with high ambient noise levels in the airplane; (3) inadequate training of the pilots by the airline; (4) the first officer's limited multiengine and instrument flying experience; (5) the pilots' limited experience in their positions in the Beech 99; and (6) stress-inducing events in the lives of the pilots.

[2] The passengers included playwright and actor Larry Shue and several executives of Beiersdorf, a personal care products company.