1941 — Oct 30, Northwest Airlines DC-3 crash on Fargo ND approach, Moorhead, MN– 14
Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 9-22-2024 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/
–14 Eckert. “Fatal commercial air transport crashes, 1924-1981.” AJFM&P, 3/1, March 1982, p. 52.
–14 Gilmour, Deneen. “Local Tragedies Make Headlines.” The Forum, Dec 19, 1999.
–14 Helena Independent, MT. “Fourteen…Killed…Crash…Big N.W.A. Plane.” 10-31-1941, 2
–14 Life (Magazine). “Air Crashes.” Nov 10, 1941, p. 40.
Narrative Information
Life (Magazine): “U.S. air history’s worst day came last week. On Thursday, Oct. 30, two crowded airline transports crashed and burned, killing 34 people. The only survivor was Northwest Airlines’ Captain Clarence Bates, who miraculously lived to tell what happened to his plane.
“At 1:54 a.m., Captain Bates arrived over the Fargo, N. Dak., airport, flying blind. Letting down through the overcast, he suddenly found his controls locked by ice. The ship struck ground, slithered across a shallow coulee and piled up. Bates was thrown clear, dazed and cut. If the gas tanks had not burst and set the ship on fire, the 14 others aboard might also have lived. But they all burned to death.” (Life (Magazine). “Air Crashes.” Nov 10, 1941, p. 40.)
National Fire Protection Association: “October 31 [sic. 30th], 1941, Moorhead, Minn. Twelve men and a woman died when a large airliner crashed in a field and immediately burst into flames.” (NFPA Quarterly 1942, 286)
Newspaper
Oct 30, AP: “Moorhead, Minn., Oct. 30.—(AP)—Soothed by sedatives, a veteran flying-officer tonight rested for the ordeal of telling official investigators what happened during those agonizing moments today in the fatal, flaming crash of his Northwest Airlines transport plane. Physicians decline to permit Captain Clarence Bates, 41, a 10,000 air hour flier to talk about the 2 a. m., disaster that killed 14 — everyone on the liner but the pilot.
“Victims were 12 passengers, the stewardess and copilot.
“Whether, as unofficial outside observers believed, the ship gathered ice quickly in slipping down through fog and mist to freezing ground temperatures will not be known until Bates talks. Also eagerly awaited were details of Bates’ exit from the plane. He presumably either was thrown from the cockpit or crawled from the wreckage which caught fire immediately.
“George Gardner, vice president in charge of N.W.A. operations, said he was assured Bates was recovering rapidly from shock and minor injuries. Gardner, other N.W.A. officials, civil aeronautics authority representatives and local authorities, as well as the aviation world awaited the direct details of the apparent sudden disabling of the 21-passenger plane as it virtually hovered over the Fargo airport.
“That was its next stop on the Chicago to Seattle flight. Concealed by thick weather with a 500-foot ceiling, the twin motored transport reported to the St. Paul dispatcher that it was coming on routine instrument approach from 2,700 feet. That was the last word although the big ship did circle over the field according to custom….
“The only eye witness to the tragedy reached the scene while the dazed pilot tried to rescue the trapped occupants. E. M. Gregory, Great Northern railway employe, the witness, said he saw the plane as he drove along but a moment before the crash, then a burst of flames. Driving as near as he could, then running, he came upon Bates just rising from the ground. Gregory, who was driving toward Fargo, said Bates was about 15 feet in front of the plane’s nose. “He was frantic and was screaming ‘get them out!’ “How do you do it?’ I asked. “’Through the door,’ he replied, ‘but watch out because the four gasoline tanks haven’t all exploded.’ “I ran around the plane but it was too hot to get to the door. I went around the plane to see if there was any pounding at the windows, but there wasn’t and I couldn’t hear any screaming. “Bates had collapsed on the ground and I dragged him farther away from the flames. It was apparent those in the plane were beyond help”.” (Helena Independent, MT. “Fourteen…Killed…Crash …Plane.” 10-31-1941, 2.)
Sources
Eckert, William G. “Fatal commercial air transport crashes, 1924-1981.” American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, Vol. 3, No. 1, March 1982, Table 1.
Gilmour, Deneen. “Local Tragedies Make Headlines.” The Forum, 12-19-1999. Accessed at: http://legacy.inforum.com/specials/century/jan3/week52.html
Helena Independent, MT. “Fourteen Are Killed In Crash of Big N.W.A. Plane.” 10-31-1941, p. 2. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=5315237
LIFE (Magazine). “Air Crashes.” 11-10-1941, p. 40. Digitized by google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=Mk4EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
National Fire Protection Association. “Fires in Which There was Loss of Life, Second Quarter, 1941.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 35, No. 1, July 1941, p. 95.