Jones trip 6 to Seattle: Plane 66 testing on frequencies 3147.5. . . .
Seattle to Jones trip 6: OK, the correct time is 8:25 p. m. Seattle barometer 29.83. United proceeds only with safety.
Thus began the radio log of United Air Lines' Trip 6—Seattle to San Diego, Calif.— on the rainy night of November 28, 1938. Nine hours later Co-Pilot Lloyd E. Jones was dead, drowned in the surf off Point Reyes, near Oakland. So were the stewardess and three of the four passengers. The ship, a Douglas DC-3, out of gas, off its course and miserably mismanaged by its First Pilot Charles B. Stead, was a wave-washed wreck.
Last week crash experts of the Air Safety Board turned over to the Civil Aeronautics Authority their official report of the loss of U. A. L.'s Trip 6. It was the most damning official criticism of plane and ground crews in U. S. airline history. It also recommended unprecedented penal ties for both. After the crash, Pilot Stead's explanation was that he got lost because sunspot activity caused radio "long skip." made remote radio stations drown out ranges on his course (TIME, Dec. 12). The hard-headed experts of the Air Safety Board summarily laid the crash down to a mounting series of fantastic bungles, found no support for his explanation.
Trip 6 got away safely from Medford, Ore. after midnight, with seven radio ranges, their beams running in four quadrants, to guide him to Oakland. But at Medford, Stead had already made his first blunder. He failed to fill his gasoline tanks. From Medford, on instruments, against a heavy headwind and an hour behind schedule, he went down the south leg of the Fort Jones range, passed the Red Bluff localizer, reported that the Sacramento range was drowning out the Williams beam (which ground stations reported was operating without interference). Then, for almost an hour, Trip 6 was silent.
Oakland to Stead—Trip 6 not heard.
Portland to Trip 6—not heard.
Sacramento to Stead—not heard.
Elko to Stead—not heard.
Oakland East and North—SUSPEND ALL TRAFFIC EXCEPT SHIP TO GROUND.
Finally, at 3:03 a. m. Stead called Oakland, asked to be told where the north leg of the Fresno range intersected the northeast leg of the Oakland range.
Oakland to Stead: One minute . . . vicinity of Fairfield (about 35 miles northeast of Oakland).
Stead to Oakland: Definitely on northeast leg.
The Oakland dispatcher breathed easier. If Stead was where he said he was, he should be landing in 15 minutes. But troubles were piling up for the husky oldtime (8,650 hours) pilot like ice on a wing in a freezing rain. On he flew, but heard no cone of silence from the radio range which would have told him he was over Oakland, and Oakland heard nothing from him. Oakland waited.
Oakland to Stead: Oakland ceiling 2200 . . . visibility 20 miles.
Oakland to Medford: How much fuel on United Trip 6 out of your station?
Medford to Oakland: No fuel on at Medford.
Then Oakland, thoroughly alarmed, heard from Stead. "Something must be wrong with the Oakland range," he said. With only 60 gallons of gas left, he reported: "Don't know exactly where I am."