Into Arkansas Loblolly

Up from Newark Airport one noon last week climbed The Southerner, American Airlines' crack transcontinental transport. Southward it flew through perfect flying weather, halting briefly for passengers at Philadelphia, Washington, Nashville. Aboard the 11-ton, twin-motored Douglas was W. R. Dyess, WPAdministrator for Arkansas, on the way home. Partners W. S. Hardwick and David A. Chernus, engineers, and wealthy young Frank C. Hart, head of Hartol Products Corp., were making business trips. Young Charles Altschul, nephew of New York's Governor Herbert H. Lehman, amused himself by experimenting with his new candid camera. Mrs. Samuel Horovitz of Boston, who had never flown before, was nervous at first, but soon relaxed, sat quietly talking to her mother-in-law, watching her curly-haired son play in the aisle. To other passengers she said: "Isn't he happy! He's 5 years old today."

Presently, at about 6:30 p. m., the plane landed at Memphis. Out got three passengers, and in got three more. Aboard too, climbed a new crew of three, including oldtime Pilot Jerry Marshall. At 7:03 p. m. The Southerner took off with 17 aboard, headed out over flat, sparsely-settled country toward Little Rock.

At 7:18, Pilot Marshall radioed that all was well, the weather clear, the plane at 3,000 ft. Half hour later, with no further word, Memphis began calling, got no answer. Soon Little Rock reported The Southerner overdue. Frantically alarmed, American Airlines launched a search. Before it discovered anything, a farmer telephoned shocking news in from the hamlet of Goodwin, Ark.

To Farmer George Jones and his family in their homestead three miles out of Goodwin, the nightly passing of The Southerner was "a comfort," a thing to set watches by. That night, about 7:30 p. m. Farmer Jones and two other men heard the roar of the twin Cyclone engines much nearer than usual, spied the airliner streaking past only 100 ft. above the trees. Suddenly, just after it passed from sight, the smooth drone of the engines ceased in a mighty crash like two claps of thunder. Mounting a horse Farmer Jones galloped to Goodwin, gave the alarm.

Not for another four hours was the wreck found. Searchers, starting at the Jones farm, found themselves up against as horrid a spot for a crack-up as can be imagined. The woods into which The Southerner had flopped is dense, cut-over timber, growing out of a dank, quaking bog. In some places the gumbo of muck is four feet deep. Natives call it ''Loblolly," wear hip-boots on the rare occasions they enter it.

Plunging into this black morass with flashlights, hunting parties finally came across a 100-yd. scar in the forest which looked as if a giant scythe had slashed diagonally down through the trees. At one end were a few lopped branches, at the other the crunched remnant of The Southerner's cabin. In between was a confetti of duralumin, mail, cloth, hunks of flesh. Part of a wing was wrapped around a tree 40 ft. off the ground. Blood stains began high on tree trunks, gradually descended until they smeared the stumps. Everywhere was the reek of gasoline.

Inside and near the squashed cabin was a jumble of shattered corpses. Some had been cut in half by safety belts. Others could be identified only by a process oi elimination. Many had to be assembled from scattered parts. All had been killed instantly.

Soon a crowd began to collect, rooted about in the light of newshawks' flashbulbs. A Federal revenue officer saw a man scuttle away with a fat roll of bills filched from one of the bodies. Many started souvenir-hunting. Someone dug up the air-speed indicator. The hand was jammed at 180 m.p.h.

Carried in on a stretcher, the district's crippled coroner was held up by four men while he conducted an inquest, supervised the removal of the bodies. Finally, as day broke, an army of official investigators began to arrive.

Three days later, Air Commerce Director Eugene Vidal closed the inquiry, admitted he did not yet know what had caused the worst disaster in the history of U. S. commercial aviation, the first accident in 86,000,000 passenger miles for American Airlines. Shrewdest guess was that a faulty altimeter had led Pilot Marshall astray.

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