Known as “Jimmy,” Helms was a popular figure around the University of Virginia Drama Department. A World War II veteran who fought in the bloody campaign around Anzio, Italy, Monterey-born Helms graduated from UVA and earned his masters just a year before the crash. He became such an avid director and advocate for student participation in all aspects of dramatic production that he was commemorated in 1974 by the dedication of a new theater in his name. At the time of his death, Helms was working setting up forensic competitions for the Virginia High School League with his office in UVA’s Alderman Library.
Bradley presides over 50th ceremony
Phil Bradley greets families before the October 31, 2009 ceremony. Click image for slideshow.
Fifty years after the crash of Flight 349, Phil Bradley, the sole survivor, came back to the Crozet area to preside over the October 31 commemoration ceremony. Attendees noted that the weather was eerily similar to the weather 50 years earlier, when Bradley spent a day and a half on Bucks Elbow Mountain. Charlottesville was only supposed to be a brief stopping point for many of the passengers of the ill-fated flight, but it turned out to have lasting impact for friends and family of the 26 people who died in the crash. Bradley remembered them by rededicating the monument he erected a decade ago.
Bradley appears on Charlottesville radio
Phil Bradley at the site of the monument he erected
Phil Bradley, the sole survivor of Piedmont Flight 349 was interviewed by Charlottesville WINA-AM radio host Coy Barefoot on Wednesday, October 14. The show has been podcast. (The same day, a well-known Charlottesvillian named Ken Staples, who worked on body recovery at the crash site, also appeared on the radio program.)
