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1951 Flight 7 airplane disaster...
1951 Flight 7 airplane disaster...
Item # 725132
April 08, 1951
THE DETROIT FREE PRESS, April 8, 1951
* Southwest Airways Flight 7 disaster
* Douglas DC-3 airliner - airplane crash
* Refugio Pass - Santa Ynez Mountains
The front page hs a six column headline: "Airliner Crashes into Peak; State GI IS Among 22 Killed" with subhead. Related photo on page 8. (see images)
Complete with 50+ pages, light toning and minor wear at the margins, small binding holes along the spine, generally nice.
background: On April 6, 1951, Southwest Airways Flight 7, a Douglas DC-3, met with a catastrophic end when it slammed into a 2,740-foot ridge in the Refugio Pass of the Santa Ynez Mountains, killing all 22 people on board. The flight was a short, routine leg from Santa Maria to Santa Barbara, but the pilot—despite having flown the route over 1,300 times—descended into a thick blanket of coastal fog and stratus clouds that obscured the peaks. Investigations by the Civil Aeronautics Board later determined that the aircraft was in perfect working order at the time of impact, concluding that the disaster was caused by the pilot's decision to fly below the mandatory 4,000-foot safety altitude, likely in a fatal attempt to maintain visual contact with the ground beneath the heavy "soup" of the California marine layer.
Category: The 20th Century
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