DC-3 Crash Approximately 30 Miles Southwest of Las
Vegas
TWA Flight Plan. TWA 3 proposed departure
6:45 P.M., cruise 8,000 cross Palmdale 6,000, Newhall 4,000, Burbank one
thirty-three. KF
ATC TWA cleared to Burbank Tower, cruise
8,000, cross Palmdale 6,000, Newhall 4,000.
TWA Some delay on TWA 3 in Las Vegas.
I don't have the approximate departure time.
ATC OK.
TWA TWA 3 was off Las Vegas at zero seven,
and he was in Las Vegas at 36, six-three-six.
ATC OK, thank you.
ATC WC 7:08 P.M.
ATC Traffic for TWA 3 is northeast bound
Western 10, estimated Daggett seven fifty-nine, climbing to
9,000.
ATC WC 7:34 P.M.
TWA I haven't been able to contact TWA
3 on Silver Lake check. Silver Lake is an authorized check point-- I mean
required Airways check point, isn't it?
ATC That's right. Yes.
TWA Thought he might understand he just
give us time to Daggett as his first estimate, and he might have been under
the impression didn't have to check over Silver Lake.
ATC Well, don't forget to give him the
traffic of Western 10.
TWA I'll broadcast that to him on day
and night. KF
ATC 7:50 P.M.
ATC Burbank Airways (Answering call on
Las Vegas line)
LQ I got a report from ah-- the operator
at Arden, a Mr. Flare from Blue Diamond Mine near Arden Beacon, that they
heard a plane go over, and shortly after a crash, there's a fire burning
over in that section now. I have no planes in the vicinity, do you
know of any? I checked with TWA and TWA cleared here at seven-O-seven,
ah, ah-- there's no reports since he left.
The above information is from dictaphone records in the Burbank Airway Traffic
Control Center. The black and white photo is from the Civil Aeronautics
Administration's mishap report compared with a view of the crash site
today.
TWA Transcontinental and Western Air radio Dispatch
Room.
ATC Airway Traffic Control Center, Burbank,
California.
LQ Airway Communication Station, Las Vegas,
Nevada.
KF Mr. Korf, Radio Operator, Transcontinental
and Western Air.
TWA’s Flight Three was on the final leg of a transcontinental flight
from New York to Burbank when it crashed approximately 30 miles southwest
of Las Vegas on 16 January 1942. Actress Carole Lombard and 21 others
killed when the aircraft struck a cliff, approximately 500 feet from the
mountain top.
Wreckage was located from the air on the morning of 17 January. The
first ground party reached the crash site later that afternoon. Inspection
revealed the the aircraft collided with the lower part of an almost perpendicular
cliff. As a result of the crash and ensuing fire, the aircraft was
completely demolished. The largest piece was the shattered tail section,
found inverted and approximately 30 feet down the rocky slope.
Little debris remains today. A small amount of wreckage was wrestled
off the mountain by the original search crew.
Present day
salvagers have removed all, but the smallest pieces of aluminum. The
largest pieces are remains of the engines and landing gears.
Ms. Lombard was returning to California following a successful war bond drive
in Indianapolis. She was returning to the 18 January opening of "To
Be or Not to Be" costarring Jack Benny. At the time of the accident,
Ms. Lombard was married to Clark Gable.
I visited the crash site a few years ago. One of the gentleman in the
party came across pilot wings. Unfortunately, focusing a camera remains a
challenge for me. The wing reads, "Transcontinental and Western Air."
