1937's Fifth

From January to October last year four scheduled airliners in the U. S. crashed 40 people to death. Until last week this year's record for the same period stood at four airliner crashes, 33 deaths. One morning last week United Air Lines Flight No. i took off from Newark for Oakland, Calif. -- an 18-hour, 2,600-mile journey. Chicago, Omaha, Cheyenne, where passengers changed to a 21-passenger Douglas DC3, and Rock Springs, Wyo. slid by below. A few miles farther along, skimming the mountains at 10,000 ft., veteran Pilot Earl Woodgerd reported clouds but "OK." It was 8:19 p. m. with the ship about 140 miles northeast of its next stop, Salt Lake City. Then for twelve hours there was silence. Finally U. A. L. announced that its plane had been sighted, smashed near a saddle of Chalk Mountain in the bleak Uinta Range. When searchers next day reached it by pack horse and foot, they found 16 passengers, two pilots and a stewardess dead in the snow-covered wreckage--worst airplane accident in U. S. history.

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