center hinge outboard together with 15 feet of the left outer wing panel and aileron separated from the aircraft. Ground impact occurred beyond the northeast tower. At this point, the aircraft had rolled to a partially inverted attitude. The nose and left wing struck the ground first. The rest of the airplane fell to earth in short order and caught fire. The aircraft narrowly missed hitting a trailer park on the Albany-Schenectady road. All 28 occupants on board (25 passengers, 2 pilots, and a flight attendant) were killed. The aircraft crashed just north of Central Avenue (NY Route 5). To date, this is the worst aviation accident in the Albany area. By 1957, in an effort to become more competitive with the more established stations in the region, a new "Top 40" format was introduced to Capital District listeners. WTRY also had top 40 programs at the time, but did not devote the entire broadcast day to it. Popular hosts on WPTR included Boom Boom Brannigan, Charlie Brown, and Bob Badger. Brannigan would stay with the station until 1974. The popular rock-and-roll format had a loyal following among listeners both locally, and throughout the northeastern United States, as well as a good portion of eastern and Maritime Canada. In fact, WPTR had a stronger skywave signal in the western Boston suburbs than Boston's own top 40 station, WMEX. By the early 1960s, WTRY had switched to top 40 music programming full-time, and a ratings war of sorts began between the two stations that lasted well into the 1970s. For much of its top 40 heyday, WPTR was the number-one rated station in the Capital District. In 1960, the studios were moved to the more prominent 1820 Central Avenue location in Colonie, where they remained until a fire severely damaged the interior of the building in 1964. A new broadcast facility was constructed at the transmitter site, and programming originated from what became known as the 'Gold studios' until 2005 when the building was demolished. Programming now originates from new digital facilities inside the transmitter building. With FM stations becoming increasingly popular with younger listeners, WPTR's ratings entered a steady decline in the mid-1970s, and in 1980 the station's owner, Rust Communications (which also owned WFLY, an FM station that had adopted a top 40 format a year earlier) finally submitted and flipped WPTR to country music in 1980 with veteran