End of NC 12354

Into the control cabin of Condor NC 12354 at Newark Airport one afternoon last week climbed Pilot Clyde Hoi-brook of American Air Lines, onetime War ace, veteran of 10,000 flying hours. Into the passenger cabin climbed Stewardess Margaret Huckeby, onetime nurse. Four passengers followed them in and, last, Copilot John Barron Jr. "Clear!" cried the dispatcher, and the green spotlight across the field showed clear. Pilot Holbrook took off with a roar and headed north for Chicago by way of Syracuse, Buffalo, Cleveland.

Half an hour later came a radio telephone report: "HOLBROOK CALLING NEWARK. NOW OVER NEWBURGH. EVERYTHING OKAY." From Holbrook in NC 12354 no more was heard that day. Next morning, still missing, NC 12354 was the object of one of the greatest plane-hunts in U. S. aviation history. From New Jersey and New York went National Guard and commercial planes. From the U. S. S. Saratoga went two fleet Navy fighters. On roads and mountain byways roamed grey-clad State troopers. All that day and night and all next morning they hunted high & low in the rough Catskill Mountain country. At noon on the second day Pilots William H. Hallock and Lee Lewis flew low over a wooded peak at Mongaup Park, known locally as "Last Chance Hill," spotted the burned wreckage of NC 12354, the incinerated remains of Pilot Holbrook. Copilot Barron, Stewardess Huckeby & all four passengers. Airline officials deduced that Pilot Holbrook had turned westward to skirt a storm area. Squeezed down by the thick blanket of clouds above, the plane had torn an Soft. swath through the treetops, crashed to earth in a blaze of flame. One body, flung clear of the wreckage, was found with hands snapped off at the wrist.

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