San Bernardino Mountains F-10A NC-279E 11/23/19
Read MoreOn February 23, 1930 the Western Air Express Fokker F-10A NC-279E was on a flight from Kingman, Arizona to Los Angeles, California. At the time no passengers were onboard, only the three man flight crew. When NC-279E failed to arrived at it’s destination, an air and ground search was started for the missing airliner. After an extensive twelve day search, the crushed wreckage was spotted from the air in a box canyon by pilot Dudley Steele and pilot/observer Juanita Burns who were taking part in the search. The exact cause of the accident is unknown, but it appears that NC-279E suffered from structural failure after flying into a severe snowstorm over the San Bernardino Mountains. One of it’s wings was found intact eight hundred feet away and on the other side of a ridge from where it had crashed into the canyon. Killed in the accident were pilot James E. Doles, co-pilot Arthur W. Bieber and steward John W. Slaton.
This photo was provided by G. Pat Macha. It shows pilot Dudley Steele and pilot/observer Juanita Burns at the wreckage the day after it was located. Here’s the text that was on the back of the photo.
REFERENCE DEPT. MAR 10 1930 N.E.A.
WRECKED AIR LINER FOUND AFTER TWO-WEEKS SEARCH
Object of a frantic two-weeks search by scores of planes and hundreds of mountaineers, the missing tri-motored air liner which dropped from sight in a storm between Kingman, Ariz., and Los Angeles has been found wrecked in an inaccessible spot in the Sierras with its complement of three men, including the noted pilot Jim Doles, dead. Mrs. Juanita Eloise Burns, 25-year-old Texas woman flyer, located the wrecked plane by reasoning out the actions Pilot Doles would probably have taken and searching for the where she thought it would be, after scores of men flyers had totally failed to locate the ship.
Memo: Had considerable expense on this, since we all had to chip in and finance the expedition into the mountains.Another photo provided by G. Pat Macha.
Here’s the text that was on the back of this one.
REFERENCE DEPT. MAR 18 1930 N.E.A.
Wreckage of the 14-passenger Western Air Express Fokker monoplane missing on a run from Kingman, Arizona, to Los Angeles, more than two weeks. James E. Dole, pilot; Arthur Beiber, co-pilot, and John Slaton, steward, were crushed to death in the mass, which struck a mountain near Lake Arrowhead, Cal.