NROTC midshipmen attend civilian colleges during the fall and spring semesters, and spend part of the summer on active-duty training.

The port engine lost power during initial climb following takeoff and the plane hit a clump of trees a mile north of the runway.

[3] The accident remains the greatest recorded loss of United States midshipmen in a single event.

[5] Many of the Holloway Plan midshipmen were engineering students; and surviving midshipmen on other planes recalled one of those killed had completed an evaluation of the R4Q aircraft as an exercise and shared his conclusion that the aircraft could not maintain altitude if one engine failed during takeoff with a full load of fuel and cargo.

Students from all NROTC schools were uniformly distributed among transport aircraft in subsequent summer training programs.