Goodwill Flight

Christopher Columbus 445 years ago touched the shores of what is now the Dominican Republic and the Dominican Republic will never forget it. Columbus is still the Republic's leading character and its people have long wished to honor America's discoverer in a manner truly grand. For 75 years they have talked of a ''world's greatest" monument (in the form of a memorial lighthouse), finally got the backing of the Pan American Conference of 1923, a design, support of the League of Nations and "sympathy" of most sister republics in the New World. To publicize the project and to get this sympathy backed by the $5,000,000 hard cash necessary for its completion, the Dominican Government last spring, before it fell to warring with Haiti, announced a "Goodwill Flight'' to 52 cities in 26 countries from Argentina to Canada.

Cuba heartily joined the goodwill flight plan, added three airplanes and her best flyers to the single machine of the Dominican Republic. Suddenly last week their months of flight talk were shocked to a dismayed whisper as word was received that seven of the nine flyers, the whole Cuban contingent, had been killed in an almost incredible triple collision in the mountains of Colombia.

Twice postponed, the goodwill squadron had finally lined up at Ciudad Trujillo, on the exact spot where Columbus is believed to have landed, to a farewell blessing from the Dominican Republic's wordy, despotic Dictator-President Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina--who among other activities in the past seven years changed the name of America's most ancient city from San Domingo to his own. The Dominican airplane, a single-motored, 450-h. p. Curtiss-Wright 19R, piloted by the nation's Army Air Commander Major Frank Felix Miranda, was named the Colon, Spanish version of Columbus. The three Cuban planes, all new single-motored, 285-h. p. Stinson "Reliants," were romantically titled after Columbus' discovery ships-- Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina. With them as representative of Pan American Columbus Society went Havana Journalist Ruy de Lugo Vina. Gaily they took off. visited in turn the nearby Indies, Venezuela, Brazil, passed over Paraguay to Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru. Ecuador.

Soon after dawn one morning last week the four planes left Cali, Colombia for Panama. Because of adverse weather 'reports Major Frank Felix Miranda flew the Colon northeast up the valley between the ranges of the Cordilleras, sat down safely at his destination. The three Cuban planes, commanded by First Lieutenant Antonio Menendez Pelaez, transatlantic Naval ace, wanting to reach the coast before turning north, started to cross the Cordilleras to the west. Twelve miles beyond Cali observers could easily see that the pilots were in difficulty. Powerful winds rocked and buffeted the light planes as they tried to rise above the 10,000-ft. peaks around them. They attempted to turn back. Then, eyewitnesses said, the three planes seemed to be blown together; there was a violent crash as they momentarily interlocked, a burst of flame. Like two stones the Santa Maria and Pinta fell to earth, crashed side by side in the bottom of a shallow creek. On fire, the Nina struggled a few seconds, crashed a few hundred yards from its companions. All seven occupants of the three planes were instantly killed, those in the Nina burned beyond recognition.

Sadly Cuba decreed two days' national mourning, dispatched the gunboat Patria for the bodies and a seven-man commission to investigate the freak accident. Promptly Mexico's Congress voted three planes, headed by their army air ace Colonel Roberto Fierro and carrying both Mexican and Cuban flags, to replace Cuba's lost squadron. The flight is due in the U. S. in January and reluctantly its sponsors realized that the Columbus Memorial Lighthouse had probably been brought nearer by misfortune.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.