LOMBARD IS ONE OF THE VICTIMS – GABLE RUSHES TO SCENE OF FIERY CRASH
LOS ANGELES – 1/17/42 – - Army directed searchers on horseback, led by an Indian tracker, toiled over steep snow-packed trails of the Potosi Range in Nevada, seeking the spot were a Los Angeles bound TWA Skysleeper with 22 persons aboard, including film star Carole Lombard and 15 Army fliers, crashed in flames on Table Mountain.
Miss Lombard, returning from a defense bond campaign trip to Indiana, and others aboard the plane are believed to have perished. The searching party forced its way up the 8700-foot peak with little hope of finding anything by charred bodies and twisted wreckage.
At the foot of the mountain Clark Gable, actor husband of Miss Lombard, waited with the rescue squad of ambulances and motor cars marshaled in the faint hope that some of those on the plane may have survived.
The actor, who flew to the scene of the wreck last night immediately after learning of the crash, was reported badly broken up.
Guiding the posse of cowboys, Indians and soldiers under the direction of Major W.H. Anderson, executive officer of the Air Corps gunnery school at nearby McCarren Field, were accounts of workers at the Blue Diamond Mine near Arden, NV. They reported hearing last night a terrific explosion and seeing the Table Mountain shroud of snow suddenly lighted by the burst of flame shortly after the plane had passed over the mine.
Assisting in the search from the air were TWA officials who took off from Las Vegas at 7:30 AM today. A few hours after the plane was seen at the mine, Western Airlines Pilot Art Cheney, flying from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, sighted the flaming wreckage.
The plane was at first reported to have been off its usual course from Albuquerque to Los Angeles. Officials of the airline however, explained that, although it had previously followed the Kingman-Los Angeles beam without touching at Las Vegas, its schedule had been recently changed to include a stop at Las Vegas.
The plane had landed at Las Vegas at 6:30 last night, refueled, and took off at 7:07 PM.
The crash occurred about 7:30 PM, less than a half-hour after the Los Angeles bound airliner had taken off from Las Vegas.
CAROLE LOMBARD, 21 OTHERS DIE – MOTHER OF STAR WITH HER ON ILL-FATED AIRLINER
