TWA Flight 3
Douglas DC-3 similar to accident aircraft
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | January 16, 1942 |
| Summary | Controlled flight into terrain due to pilot error |
| Site |
Potosi Mountain (Nevada) 35°57′3.71″N 115°29′25″W / 35.9510306°N 115.49028°WCoordinates: 35°57′3.71″N 115°29′25″W / 35.9510306°N 115.49028°W |
| Passengers | 19 |
| Crew | 3 |
| Fatalities | 22 (all) |
| Injuries (non-fatal) | 0 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Douglas DC-3 |
| Operator | Transcontinental and Western Air |
| Registration | NC1946 |
| Flight origin | New York, NY |
| Stopover | Las Vegas |
| Destination | Burbank, California |
TWA Flight 3 was a twin-engined Douglas DC-3-382 propliner, registration NC1946, operated by Transcontinental and Western Air as a scheduled domestic passenger flight from New York City, to Burbank, California, via Indianapolis, Indiana, St. Louis, Missouri, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Las Vegas, Nevada. On January 16, 1942, at 19:20 PST, 15 minutes after takeoff from Las Vegas Airport (now Nellis Air Force Base) bound for Burbank, the aircraft slammed into a sheer cliff on Potosi Mountain, 32 miles (51 km) southwest of the airport, at an elevation of 7,770 ft (2,370 m) above sea level, and was destroyed. All 19 passengers on board, including movie star Carole Lombard and her mother, and all three crew members, died in the crash. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigated the accident and determined it was caused by a navigation error by the captain.
TWA Flight 3 was flying a transcontinental route from New York to greater Los Angeles with multiple intermediate stops, including Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Albuquerque, with a final destination at Burbank, California.
At 4:00 local time on the morning of January 16, in Indianapolis, Indiana, Carole Lombard, her mother Elizabeth Knight, and her MGM press agent Otto Winkler, boarded Flight 3 to return to California. Lombard, anxious to meet her husband Clark Gable in Los Angeles, was returning from a successful War Bonds promotion tour in the Midwest, where she helped raise over $2,000,000.
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Wikipedia