On February 3rd 1959, a small Beechcraft 35 airplane, a charter plane with a pilot and
three passengers took off from Mason City Airport in Mason City Iowa, headed for Hector Airport
in Fargo North Dakota. The plane didn't make it six miles before it crashed into a frozen field,
killing everybody on board. Pretty much every American who was alive at the time remembers that
accident, and those who weren't yet alive still probably remember it because of the 1971 song by
Don McLean that eulogized the loss of innocence that came, “On the day the music died.’" But the
plane crash that killed music stars Buddy Holly, JP Richardson, and Ritchie Valens has a unique
connection to another airplane accident that is not nearly as well remembered. Ritchie Valens,
just 17 years old when he died in that airplane crash, was reportedly afraid of
flying. Afraid of flying because of another accident that had terrified him just two
years earlier. The victims of the 1957 Pacoima mid-air collision deserved to be remembered.
At 10:15 a.m. on January 31st 1957, a Douglas DC-7B took off from Santa Monica Airport. The
Douglas DC-6 had originally been intended as a military transport towards the end of the
Second World War. It was itself a development of the Douglas DC-3, flown by the military as
the C-47 Skytrain, one of the most well recognized transports of the Second World War. After the war,
Douglas developed the DC-6, designed for commercial travel intended to compete with
the Lockheed Constellation in the long range commercial transportation market. The plane
had been highly successful, used by multiple Airlines and the military, with over 700 built.
But C.R. Smith, the president of American Airlines, wanted a faster plane. One that
could fly across the United States in about eight hours. Commercial airliners of the day could not
reliably fly nonstop routes east to west, because they were flying against the prevailing winds,
and the average flight time across the country was some 15 hours. The Douglas company was reticent to
invest in the development costs, not convinced there was a big enough market for such a plane,
until American made a firm order for 25 planes. The prototype first flew in May of 1953,
and Douglas delivered the first DC-7 to American Airlines in November. In its time, it was the
fastest transport aircraft in service, with a cruising speed of 360 miles per hour. The DC-7
was one of the last major piston-driven passenger aircraft designs; its eventual replacement,
the DC-8, used jet engines. In 1955, Douglas came out with the DC-7B model, which carried more fuel.
The plane that took off that January morning in 1957 was a brand new DC-7B,
manufactured at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Santa Monica California.
It was on its first operational flight, and was earmarked for Continental Airlines. The plane
was undergoing routine testing, and was crewed by Douglas employees. The testing was required
by civil air regulations in order to issue an airworthiness certificate for the plane.
36 year old William Carr was the pilot, with veteran co-pilot Artie Twitchell. In addition,
the crew included a radio operator, and a flight engineer. While the tests were expected to take
only about two and a half hours, the plane was loaded with six hours worth of fuel. The plane
was performing its tests in clear skies at 25,000 feet over California's San Fernando Valley. The
same morning, two F-89J Scorpion fighter jets took off from a Northrup corporate facility in Palmdale
California. The F-89 had been developed from a 1946 US Army Air Forces specification for an
all-weather night fighter. Designed to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft by day or night,
under all types of weather conditions, the plane had two crew, a pilot and a radio man,
seated in tandem. The nickname Scorpion had been coined by Northrup employees,
referring to the appearance of the slim rear fuselage, and the high mounted tail,
and the nickname had been retained by the Air Force. The first production versions of the
aircraft were delivered in September of 1950. While a jet aircraft that was fast in its day,
it was subsonic, with a maximum speed of 635 miles per hour. In 1957, the Air Force had Northrup
start converting 350 F-89D models to the F-89J, which was specifically designed carry the MV-1
air-to-air nuclear rocket, designed to destroy entire enemy bomber formations. The two F-89J's
taking off from Palmdale were newly converted, and had been overhauled, a process called Inspection
and Repair as Necessary. The Northrup crews were testing the two planes' radar equipment before
delivering the planes back to the air force, engaging in what was called Scissor Interceptions,
simulated all-weather interceptor attacks on each other, testing each other's radar.
All three crafts were flying under rules that limited their flight area to sparsely
populated areas, except for periods of takeoff and landing. The area that
was roughly bounded by San Diego to the South, Santa Barbara to the North West,
and Bakersfield to the North East, was designated a local flying area.
The sky was clear that day, with 50 miles visibility, so the pilots were operating under
what is called Visual Flight Rules. Under the rules, the pilot is responsible to see and avoid
obstacles and other aircraft, and are generally not assigned routes or altitudes by air traffic
control. At about 11:18 a.m., one of the F-89s, piloted by 35 year-old Roland Owen, went into a
wide turn at 25,000 feet altitude. As it completed the turn, it struck the left wing of the DC-7B,
just 5 degrees off of a head-on collision. After an accident investigation determined that the
maximum possible time that either pilot may have had to see the other craft was about 15 seconds,
and had they perceived and reacted early in that period, a crash may have been avoided.
But because of the aircraft speeds, altitude and near head-on angle, seeing the other craft would
have been unusually difficult. It was, according to the report, almost the most adverse conditions,
insofar as the time opportunity for the pilots to see and avoid is concerned.
The F-89 burst into flames! The radio operator, 27 year-old Curtis Adams, was able to eject from the
plane but suffered serious burns. His parachute had holes burned in it! He landed on the roof
of a garage in Burbank, breaking his leg when he fell to the ground. Owen went down with the plane,
which crashed in flames in Laguna Canyon, north of Burbank. Some eight and a half feet of the
left wing of the DC-7B had been sheared off. Carr desperately tried to control the plane,
but it began rolling left, and dropped into an uncontrollable spinning dive. The Douglas
Aircraft Tower in Santa Monica received the last radio message from copilot Archie
Twitchell. “Mid-air collision! Midair collision! We’re going uncontrollable!
Uncontrollable! We've had it boy!” And then, after a pause, “Say goodbye to everybody.”
The plane started disintegrating between 1,000 and 500 feet altitude,
something the Civil Aeronautics Board described,
“As the result of air loads beyond the design or required strength of the airframe.” Spewing
flaming debris across a two-mile wide swath of the california city of Pacoima
Carr, Twitchell, radio operator Roy Nakazawa, and flight engineer Waldo B. Adams all perished as the
main fuselage crashed into the churchyard of Pacoima Congregational Church. A part
of an engine smashed through the roof of the church auditorium demolishing the building.
Twenty seven year old Doris MacLaine was in the church office at the time with her 18 month-old
daughter. She was quoted in the LA Times saying, “I thought the church was being bombed.” Both
she and her daughter escaped injury, but another Church worker was injured. Next door, the pieces
of the disintegrating DC-7 were raining down on the playground at the Pacoima Junior High School.
The ninth graders were gathered in the school auditorium, practicing for their upcoming high
school graduation. At first a school official thought it was just a very loud sonic boom,
and tried to reassure the children. But the seventh and eighth graders,
children between 12 and 14 years old, had just finished PE. The girls had gone inside,
but around 200 boys were still on the playground standing in line, waiting for the order to go
inside. One report said that 25 boys were playing kickball at the time. Witnesses described the
children as being transfixed by the sight of the crashing plane at first, but as it
became clear that the plane was headed towards them, they scattered, running in all directions.
According to the Civil Aeronautics Board, more than a hundred forty people witnessed the crash,
including Vernon Scott, a correspondent for the United Press. He described the scene, “The
wreckage is scattered all over the schoolyard. There are kids lying around, others are being
treated by medics.” Parents rushed to the schoolyard trying to find their children, as did
emergency responders and news reporters. The Los Angeles Times reported that local physician Virgil
Pete Arkin sprinted from his office, two blocks away, to treat the injured. While there were many
heroes helping to treat children, and donating blood, Pacoima Police Chief William Parker,
reported that the scene became overwhelmed, with as many as 30,000 people, mostly simply gawkers.
Two students, thirteen year old Ronnie Brann, and 12 year old Robert Zallan were killed in
the schoolyard by the flaming debris. When Ronnie Brann's mother found out about her
son's death she mourned, “I didn't even kiss him goodbye this morning.” A third student,
12 year old Evan Elsner, was so severely injured that he died in the hospital the next day,
taking the death toll from the accident to eight. The four crewmen of the DC-7B,
the F-89 pilot Rowland Owen, and the three boys on the ground. Newspaper reports on the time
differ to the exact number, but between seventy and seventy four other boys were also injured,
many of them severely. 23 were still in the hospital the next day. Despite the nearly
two mile long debris field across the city of pacoima which demolished many houses, which people
described as if they've been “struck by cannon fire”, nobody else was killed. One student that
was not injured was 15 year old Richard Steven Valenzuela, better known by his stage name,
Ritchie Valens. He was absent from school that day attending his grandfather's funeral. But
so many of his friends were injured and killed that he was reportedly terrified of flying for
the rest of his life, a fact that made his death in an airplane accident just two years later, seem
all the more tragic. The accident was represented as a dream sequence in the 1987 film La Bamba.
Because of public outcry, the Civil Aeronautics Board restricted test flights to designated areas,
usually over water. The CAB determined however, that there was no practical alternative to visual
flight rules. Despite the fact that, under certain conditions of speed and angle of convergence,
very little time opportunity exists for pilots to observe the other aircraft and
take avoidance action. It seems strange that this accident is really only remembered because
of its connection to another, more famous, but less deadly accident. But the victims of
the 1957 Pacoima California mid-air collision deserve to be remembered.
I'm the History Guy. I hope you enjoyed this edition of my series of short snippets of
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