Transport: Tehachapi Toll

United Air Lines is proud of many things—that it is the oldest U. S. airline; that it flies more passenger plane-miles and traffic ton-miles than any other airline; that it makes money. Not the least of United’s prides has been its record on its most popular run—the 363 miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Since acquiring twin-motored transports seven years ago. United has flown as many as 30 planes a day over this mountainous, two-hour route with a reliability comparable to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s service between New York and Philadelphia. Pacific businessmen fly United as naturally as they take taxis. Until last week they had no other cause for complaint than that United pilots, nonchalant from long experience, sometimes skimmed startlingly low over the tumbled Tehachapi Mountains. Last week it became United’s turn to demonstrate that “pride goeth before destruction.” Skimming over the Teha-chapis only 20 miles from Los Angeles’ Union Air Terminal at Burbank, Flight 34 smashed into the top of Oak Mountain, brought death to twelve people.

The plane, a twin-motored Boeing, had left San Francisco at 5:30 that afternoon, streaked down the San Joaquin Valley at some 200 m.p.h. toward the first stop at Burbank. Aboard were two pilots, pretty Hostess Yvonne Trego, and nine passengers, including a member of Jimmy Dorsey’s orchestra, an artist from Walt Disney’s studio and young Edward Thomas Ford Jr., son of the vice president of the Grace Lines, with his pretty wife. The weather was not bad: at Bakersfield the ceiling was 3,500 ft., at Burbank 3,000 ft. The peaks on both sides of the course were garlanded with scattered clouds. Delayed slightly, Pilot Edwin W. (“Soapy”) Blom, a veteran of 18 years’ flying, radioed Burbank that he would arrive at 7:37, seven minutes late.

At 7:36, Blom’s voice came crisply through the ether asking Burbank for a radio bearing. The Burbank operator was puzzled to note that Pilot Blom was using a daytime radio frequency. He asked the plane’s position. Pilot Blom replied: “Wait a minute.” The operator waited. But he heard no voice through his earphones, no drone of motors in the sky. In a few minutes frantic United launched a search, but not until next morning did a flyer spot the tragedy from the air.

Some 50 miles northwest of Burbank the San Joaquin Valley is bitten off by the small Tehachapi Mountains, which link the Coastal ranges to the main Sierra Nevada. Between the Tehachapis and the fertile San Fernando Valley, where lies Burbank, is a knot of rugged, tawny, 3,500-ft. ridges littered with olive-green scrub oaks. Into one of these ridges Pilot Blom had plowed at full speed. For 1,000 yd. the big plane sheared the trees, losing both wings and finally bashing to a stop in a deep ravine. Everyone was killed instantly. Soapy Blom saw the crash coming, for the ignition was turned off, preventing fire. Broken watches indicated that the crash occurred at 7:38. Three investigations immediately began hunting the cause with little hope of success. Pilot Blom was only five miles from the emergency field at Saugus and only two ridges away from the San Fernando Valley. Apparently he either lost his way or badly misgauged his altitude. Unable to explain why he should have done either, United could only point out that it was the line’s first accident in 13 months, during which it flew 125,000,000 passenger miles. Next day there were no cancellations in United planes, which flew as full as ever.

United’s crash was the last of a series in recent weeks which has the whole U. S. aviation world in a tumult. Until a month ago there had been only four major crashes of scheduled U. S. airliners in 1936. Then, on Dec. 15. a Western Air Express Boeing vanished in Utah with seven aboard. On Dec. 18 a Northwest Air Lines Lockheed vanished with two pilots, but no passengers, aboard. Last week the Boeing was still lost, but the Lockheed had been found, buried in the snow near Kellogg, Idaho, with both men dead. On Dec. 19, an Eastern Air Lines Douglas cracked up in New York, killed no one due to the landing skill of Pilot Dick Merrill. On Dec. 23, a Braniff Air Lines Lockheed plumped to earth at Dallas on a test flight, killed six. Total toll for the year on scheduled passenger transport planes was 59—high-est in history.

This provoked several reactions. New York’s Senator Royal Samuel Copeland, who loves to blow off steam on airplane safety but rarely does anything about it, puffed as usual, promised an investigation. The Department of Commerce called a “private” conference of airline operators and Federal officials for Jan. 10 to 15.

Director of Air Commerce Eugene Luther Vidal declared that reports that he is about to resign are “without foundation.” United Air Lines’ Hostess Helen Clark who normally flew in the wrecked plane but had stayed at home last week to nurse a sick father, resigned. Colonel Edgar Staley Gorrell, president of the Air Transport Association of America, declared: “U. S. airlines this year have transported a total of 1,140,000 passengers, of whom 45 lost their lives. . . . Translated into passenger miles, it is possible to fly in a scheduled transport plane at an average speed of 160 m.p.h. for 17 years, one month, three weeks and 21 hours before meeting with a fatal accident, according to official statistics of leading casualty and surety companies. These same figures show that a person has been approximately twice as safe this year on a regular airline than when he is driving his own automobile.”