Nelly Hedwig Diener, Swissair flight attendant, with the airline’s blue and orange Curtiss-Wright AT-32C Condor II. Miss Diener’s uniform is azure blue. (ETH-Bibliothek, Zürich)
27 July 1934: While Ellen Evalyn Church is recorded as the first airline flight attendant, or “stewardess,” Fräulein Nelly Hedwig Diener was Europe’s first airline hostess. At the age of 22 years, she began flying for Swissair Schweizerische Luftverkehr-AG on 1 May 1934. She was known as the Engel der Lüfte (“Angel of the Skies”).
Her 79th flight departed Zürich-Dübendorf Airport enroute Stuttgart-Echterdingen Airport and then on to Berlin. The pilot was Armin Mühlematter and radio operator/navigator was Hans Daschinger. There were nine passengers on board.
Frl. Nelly Hedwig Diener in the passenger cabin of Swissair’s AT-32C Condor II, at Dübendorf. Photographed by Walter Mittelholzer, a founder of Swissair. (ETH-Bibliothek Zürich)
The airliner was a Curtiss-Wright Airplane Division AT-32C Condor II, a one-of-a-kind variant of the AT-32 which was built specifically for Swissair. It carried identification number CH-170 on its wings and fuselage. The airliner was registered HB-LAP.
The Condor was flying in a thunderstorm at approximately 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) when the right wing structure failed and separated from the airplane. CH-170 crashed into a forest between Wurmlingen and Tuttlingen, Germany, and caught fire. All twelve persons aboard were killed.
Investigators found that a fracture had developed in the welded structure of the engine mount and wing. It was believed that it was caused by defective construction and welding techniques combined with vibration of the engine. A second fracture was caused by the violent weather.
This accident was the first for Swissair, the national airline of Switzerland.
Swissair Curtiss AT-32C Condor II, CH-170, in flight.
CH-170 was one of 45 T-32 Condor II airplanes built by Curtiss-Wright for use as both a civil transport and a military transport or bomber. It was a twin-engine, two-bay biplane with retractable landing gear. CH-170 was purchased by Swissair 11 April 1934, and entered service 28 March 1934. The airliner was configured with 15 passenger seats.
The AT-32C was 49 feet, 1-1/8 inch (14.049 meters) long with an upper wingspan of 85 feet, 0 inches (25.908 meters) and lower wing span of 74 feet, 0 inches (22.555 meters), and height of 16 feet, 4 inches (4.953 meters). Both wings had a chord of 8 feet, 10.5 inches (2.705 meters). The total wing area was 1,331 square feet (123.65 square meters). The vertical gap between the upper and lower wings was 9 feet, 11 inches (3.023 meters). There was no stagger. Upper and lower wings had an angle of incidence of 1°. The center sections were straight, but outboard of the engines, they had 2¼° dihedral. ¹
Curtiss AT-32C CH-170 am Boden in Dübendorf. Photographed by Walter Mittelholzer, a founder of Swissair. (ETH-Bibliothek, Zürich)
CH-170 had an empty weight of 11,446 pounds (5,192 kilograms) and gross weight of 16,800 pounds (7,620 kilograms).
The AT-32C was powered by two air-cooled, supercharged, 1,823.129-cubic-inch-displacement (29.875 liter) Wright Cyclone SR-1820-F3 ² single-row nine-cylinder radial engines with a compression ratio of 6.4:1. They were rated at 675 horsepower at 1950 r.p.m., each, and required 87-octane aviation gasoline. These were direct-drive engines, turning three-bladed variable-pitch propellers. The SR-1820-F3 was 3 feet, 7.375 inches (1.102 meters) long, 4 feet, 5.75 inches (1.365 meters) in diameter and weighed 937 pounds (425 kilograms). The engines were enclosed in NACA cowlings, rather than the Townend rings of earlier T-32-series airplanes.
The AT-32C had a cruising speed of 235 kilometers per hour (146 miles per hour) and maximum speed of 274 kilometers per hour (170 miles per hour). The service ceiling was 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) and its range was 800 kilometers (497 miles).
Curtiss AT-32C Condor II, CH-170, at the Swissair base at Dübendorf. (Swissair)
¹ Data from three-view drawings of Richard E. Byrd’s Curtiss-Wright T-32 Condor, c/n 41, drawn by Paul R. Matt, 1965.
Captain Iven C. Kincheloe, Jr., U.S. Air Force, in the cockpit of a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. (U.S. Air Force)
26 July 1958: United States Air Force test pilot Captain Iven Carl Kincheloe, Jr., took off from Edwards Air Force Base in Lockheed F-104A-15-LO Starfighter 56-0772, acting as a chase plane for another F-104A which was flown by a Lockheed test pilot, Louis W. Schalk, Jr.
As the two supersonic interceptors began their climb out from the runway, a small control cable deep inside Kincheloe’s fighter failed, allowing the inlet guide vane of the F-104’s General Electric J79-GE-3 turbojet engine to close. With the suddenly decreased airflow the engine lost power and the airplane started to descend rapidly.
Lockheed F-104A-15-LO Starfighter 56-0772. (U.S. Air Force)
The early F-104 Starfighters had a Stanley Aviation Corporation Type B ejection seat that was catapulted or dropped by gravity from the bottom of the cockpit. 56-0772 was equipped with an improved Stanley Type C ejection seat. With the Starfighter well below 2,000 feet (610 meters), Kincheloe apparently thought that he needed to roll the airplane inverted before ejecting. This was actually not necessary and delayed his escape.
The early F-104s had a downward-firing Stanley B ejection seat, intended to avoid the airplane’s tall vertical tail. Later production aircraft used an upward-firing seat. (Lockheed Martin)
By the time he had separated from the seat and could open his parachute, he was below 500 feet (152 meters). The parachute did open, but too late. Iven Kincheloe was killed on impact. His airplane crashed into the desert floor just over 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) from the west end of Runway 22 and was totally destroyed. Today, a large crater scattered with fragments of Kincheloe’s F-104 is still clearly visible.
Iven Kincheloe was just 30 years old.
Lockheed F-104A-15-LO Starfighter 56-0772 is the interceptor closest to the camera in this photograph. (U.S. Air Force)
Iven Carl Kincheloe, Jr., was a legendary test pilot. He was born 2 July 1928 in Wayne County, Michigan, the son of Iven Carl Kincheloe, a farmer, and Francis Emma Wilde. He started flying lessons when he was 14 years old, and by the time he was legally allowed to solo—on his 16th birthday—he had already accumulated over 200 flight hours. He entered the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC) at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, where he was an engineering student. While there, he met Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager and decided that test flying was the career area that he wanted to pursue.
Iven Carl Kincheloe, Jr., Purdue Class of 1949. (1949 Debris)
At Purdue, Kincheloe was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon (ΣΦΕ) fraternity, played football and managed the track team. He was a member of a military honor society, the Scabbard and Blade, and the Gimlet Club, a booster organization supporting varsity sports at the university. Iven Kincheloe graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant, United States Air Force Reserve, 17 June 1949.
On graduation, Kincheloe was sent to Arizona to begin his Air Force pilot training. After graduating, Second Lieutenant Kincheloe was sent to Edwards Air Force Base in southern California to work on the new North American Aviation F-86E Sabre.
Lieutenant Kincheloe deployed to Korea as a fighter pilot with the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing in August 1951, flying the F-86E Sabre as an escort for bomber formations. He was transferred to the 25th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, 51st Fighter Interceptor Group, and immediately began to shoot down enemy Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 fighters. He was soon an “ace” with five confirmed kills.
Lieutenant Iven C. Kincheloe, Jr., in the cockpit of his North American Aviation F-86E-10-NA Sabre, 51-2731, named “Ivan,” Korea, circa 1951. (U.S. Air Force)
After his combat tour (131 missions) in Korea, Iven Kincheloe was assigned as an exchange student to the Empire Test Pilots’ School at RAE Farnborough, England. After completing the ten-month British training program in 1955, Kincheloe was sent back to Edwards Air Force Base.
One of the most skilled test pilots at Edwards, Iven Kincheloe flew every type of fighter, as well as the Bell X-2 rocketplane, which he flew to 126,200 feet (38,465 meters), 7 September 1956. He was the first pilot to climb higher than 100,000 feet (30,480 meters) and was considered to be “the first man in space.” For this flight, Kincheloe was awarded the Mackay Trophy, “For outstanding contributions to the science of aviation by flying the Bell X-2 to an altitude considerably higher than had ever been reached before by a piloted aircraft.”
Kincheloe was scheduled to become the primary Air Force pilot on the upcoming North American Aviation X-15 Program. That would have been followed by the Man In Space Soonest project, which would have launched Kincheloe into orbit with an X-15B second stage launched by an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile.
Captain Iven C. Kincheloe, Jr., with his son, Iven III, and Dorothy W. Heining Kincheloe. Captain Kincheloe is wearing a David Clark Co. MC-3 capstan-type partial-pressure suit and MA-3 helmet. The airplane is a Lockheed F-104A Startfighter. (Photograph courtesy of Neil Corbett, Test & Research Pilots, Flight Test Engineers)
Captain Kincheloe married Miss Dorothy W. Heining at Monterey, California, 20 August 1955. They had two children, Iven Carl Kincheloe III and Jeanine Kincheloe, who was born several months after her father’s death.
Captain Iven Carl Kincheloe, Jr., was awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit (posthumous), the Distinguished Flying Cross with two oak leaf clusters (three awards), and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters (four awards), Presidential Unit Citation with oak leaf cluster (two awards), National Defense Service Medal, Korean Service Medal with three service stars, Air Force Longevity Service Award, the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, United Nations Korean Service Medal, and the Republic of Korea Korean War Service Medal. In 1959, Kincheloe Air Force Base, Michigan, was named in his honor.
Captain Kincheloe is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.
Captain Iven Carl Kincheloe, Jr., United States Air Force. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)
Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767-200, C-GAUN, after emergency landing at Gimli, Manitoba, 23 July 1983. (Wayne Glowacki / Winnipeg Free Press)Captain Robert Pearson
23 July 1983: Air Canada Flight 143 was a Boeing 767-200, registration C-GAUN, enroute from Montreal to Edmonton, with a stop at Ottawa. On board were 61 passengers and a crew of eight. On the flight deck were Captain Robert Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal.
At 1:21 p.m., at 41,000 feet (12,497 meters) over Red Lake, Ontario, the 767 ran out of fuel and both engines stopped. This caused a loss of electrical and hydraulic power to the aircraft. The 767 was equipped with a “glass cockpit” and the pilots lost most of their instrumentation. The airliner became very difficult to fly without the hydraulic system functioning, and flaps and landing gear were inoperative.
Unable to reach Winnipeg for an emergency landing, Captain Pearson turned toward a closed airport, the former RCAF Station Gimli. First Officer Quintal had been stationed there during his military service.
Pearson had extensive experience flying gliders and used this knowledge to extend the glide of the 767. The airliner touched down on a closed runway that was being used as a race track. The nose gear, which had not locked when dropped by gravity, collapsed, and the airliner suffered some damage as it slid to a stop.
Of those aboard, there were ten people injured. The airliner was forever after known as “The Gimli Glider.”
The investigation of the accident faulted the airline for not reassigning the responsibility for calculating the fuel load when use of a flight engineer became unnecessary with the new Boeing 767, which was designed to be flown by a two-pilot crew. Also, the recent change from the Imperial measurement system to metric resulted in a series of miscalculations as to how much fuel was actually aboard the aircraft before the flight.
In 2008, C-GAUN was retired to The Boneyard at Mojave, California. Captains Pearson and Quintal and several of the Flight 143 flight attendants were aboard on her final flight.
Air Canada’s Boeing 767-200, C-GAUN, “The Gimli Glider,” in storage at Mojave. (Akradecki via Wikipedia)
21 July 1911: Denise Moore was a popular figure in aviation circles in France. She had been taking flying lessons at the Henri Farman Aviation School at Étampes, about 30 miles south of Paris.
She took off at 6:20 p.m. in Farman’s biplane, on her third flight of the day, and made two circuits of the field. On her third turn, the aircraft banked steeply and pitched downward. It crashed and Ms. Moore was killed. She was the first woman to be killed in an airplane accident.
FLIGHT reported:
Fatal Accident to Mme. Moore.
At the present moment there are a good many ladies learning to fly in France and they appear to be unperturbed by the fatal accident to Mme. Denise Moore at Mourmelon on Friday of last week. The unfortunate lady, of whom little is known beyond that she came from Algeria, had been making splendid progress during the three weeks she had been learning and during her early solo flights showed great promise. She was, however, fired by an ambition for altitude work and on the day when the accident happened, in spite of the emphatic directions of her instructor, she started off to go high. She had reached only 150 ft. however, when apparently she made a mistake in steering, for the machine fell sideways to the ground, the pilot being killed instantly.
—FLIGHT, No. 135. (No. 30. Vol. III.), 29 July 1911, at Page 665
Denise Moore was a pseudonym for Mrs. E. J. Cornesson, widow of Denis Cornesson. She was the former Miss E. Jane-Wright. She assumed the name to keep her family from discovering that she was learning to fly.
Wiley Post’s Lockheed Model 5C Vega, NR105W, Winnie Mae, after a landing accident at Flat, Alaska. Standing in front of the Winnie Mae, at left, wearing a hat and overalls, and with a pipe in his right hand, is John Beaton. Beaton was a miner whose discovery of gold at Flat began the Iditarod Gold Rush. Post is not seen in this image. (Unattributed)
20 July 1933: At 11:58 a.m. (17:58 UTC) on the fifth day of his solo around-the-world flight, Wiley Post took off from Khabarovsk, Siberia, heading toward Nome, Alaska, 2,416 miles (3,888 kilometers) to the east-northeast (great circle route).
A very tired Wiley Post photographed at Flat, Alaska, after Winnie Mae has been repaired. (University of Alaska Fairbanks)
Post missed his destination and, exhausted, became lost. He flew over Alaska for approximately seven hours before sighting a remote U.S. Army Signal Corps radio station at Flat, Alaska, a small gold mining town located along the Iditarod Trail in southwestern Alaska.
Post landed his Lockheed Model 5C Vega, NR105W, The Winnie Mae of Oklahoma, on a small landing field at the eastern edge of the town. The airplane’s wheels sank into the soft surface and Winnie Mae nosed over, damaging its propeller, engine cowling and right landing gear strut. Wiley Post was unhurt.
The International News Service (INS) reported:
. . . Utter exhaustion which numbed his mind so that he could not properly pilot his course caused him to become lost for seven hours over Alaska yesterday after he had been in the air more than 22 hours on his 3,000-mile hop from Siberia to Alaska during which he battled the most adverse weather conditions, he revealed today.
Sighting the Flat radio station caused him to land here. He said that he could at least get his directions again. He ran into soft ground on the landing field, nosing over, breaking his right wheel strut, damaging the engine cowling and valves and bending the propeller. Post was uninjured. . . .
A replacement propeller was flown in from Fairbanks and repairs were made. He continued the following day, taking off at 7:28 a.m., local.
The “Winnie Mae,” Wiley Post’s Lockheed Model 5C Vega, NR105W, after nosing over at Flat, Alaska, 20 July 1933. (Unattributed)
