AFRICA: Big Bird’s Death

Tom-toms throbbed through Liberia’s steaming jungle. Their message: a big iron bird had fallen from the sky—find it. Tribesmen left their villages, padded along remote trails, paddled through swamps; Liberian constabulary crisscrossed the bush. Above, skimming the treetops, rumbled 35 search planes.

The big iron bird they were looking for was Pan American World Airways’ Constellation Great Republic, New York-bound from Johannesburg. It had made routine stops at Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, and Accra, on the Gold Coast. At Accra, a faulty magneto on the right inboard engine had been repaired. Three and a half hours and nearly 700 miles later, flying through a drizzly night, the plane approached Roberts Field near the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Veteran Pilot Frank Crawford, 38, asked for landing instructions from the tower. He reported trouble with the radio beam on which he was flying—the stronger beacon at Dakar, 762 miles away in French West Africa, seemed to be interfering with local signals. After that, silence.

Twenty-four hours later, tribesmen found the Great Republic smashed to bits near the top of a 1,500-foot hill, 45 miles north-northeast of Roberts Field. A chieftain reported the find to a Lutheran missionary who directed search parties to the scene. Of the plane’s 40 passengers and crew, all were dead.