In 1934, all United States commercial air mail carrying contracts were cancelled due to controversy over how the contracts had been awarded. The United States Army Air Corps was charged with carrying air mail service, beginning 19 February 1934. Due in part to extremely bad weather, inadequate preparation of the mail pilots, and the inadequacies of pressing military aircraft into duties for which they were not designed, there ensued a series of accidents over the following three months, ending when commercial services were restored. In all, 66 major accidents, ten of them with fatalities, resulted in 13 crew deaths, creating intense public furor. Only five of the 13 deaths actually occurred on flights carrying mail,Hamilton, Virginia Van der Veer. "Barnstorming the U.S. Mail", American Heritage August 1974; Volume 25, Issue 5, pp. 32–35 but directly and indirectly the air mail operation caused accidental crash deaths in the Air Corps to rise by 15 percent to 54 in 1934, compared to 46 in 1933 and 47 in 1935.Correll, John L., "The Air Mail Fiasco", AIR FORCE Magazine, March 2008, Vol. 91, No. 3 http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2008/March%202008/0308airmail.pdf
The press dubbed this the Air Mail scandal, or the Air Mail fiasco.
This is a list of documented accidents and incidents involving Army Air Corps aircraft during that three-month period of 1934.
Accidents and incidents February 16 February Crash of Curtiss A-12 Shrike, 33-244, in bad weather at Oakley, Utah, kills two crew, 2d Lt. Jean Donant Grenier, from Fort Crockett, Texas, and crewmate 2d Lt. Edwin D. White Jr., 23, attached to March Field, California, while flying an advance route to determine time and distance for carrying the mail between Salt Lake City and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Their plane came down in a canyon during a snowstorm.Associated Press, "Lives of Four Army Aviators Lost Already", The Greenville Piedmont, Greenville, South Carolina, Friday 23 February 1934, Volume 103, Number 31, page one. "The plane flown by the two men crashed in a blinding snow storm 60 miles east of Salt Lake in Summit county, 30 miles south of the Utah-Wyoming line." Orson Maxwell, a miner, found the crew dead in their cockpits shortly after 1700 hrs., near the head of the Weber River. They had departed the Salt Lake City airdrome at 0930 and army officers became concerned when their arrival at Cheyenne had not been reported by afternoon. The first word of their fate was phoned to Salt Lake City by Orson Maxwell, miner, who drove in a sleigh from the scene of the crash to Oakley, several miles distant. The call was received here [March Field] about two hours after Maxwell discovered the bodies in the wrecked craft.Staff, "Army Air Mail Fliers Killed In Utah Crash – March Field Officer Is Victim As Plane Cracks Up in Blinding Snow Storm", The San Bernardino Daily Sun, San Bernardino, California, Saturday 17 February 1934, Volume 40, page 11. "Search had already started for them when a telephone call form [sic] Kamas, Utah last night told of their fate."United Press, "Blinding Snowstorm Causes Army Plane To Crash in Utah", Madera Daily Tribune and Madera Mercury, Madera, California, Saturday 17 February 1934, Volume LXIII, Number 90, page 1. "Lieutenant White was a San Francisco resident and a University of California graduate." He entered the army flying service in 1931. He was trained at Randolph and Kelly fields. [sic] Lieutenant Grenier, who was reported to have been piloting the plane, was a resident of Manchester, New Hampshire, and a graduate of the University of New Hampshire." Grenier Army Air Field, Massachusetts, later Grenier Air Force Base, is named in Lt. Grenier's honor on 22 February 1942. 16 February While on a familiarization flight for impending flights of the U.S. Mail, 2d Lt. James Young Eastham (also reported as James Y. Eastman ), "23, of the army air corps reserves," is killed in the crash of Douglas Y1B-7, 32-309, in fog at night near Jerome, Idaho.Glines, Col. Carroll V., "When the Air Corps Carried the Mail", Air Force and Space Digest, Washington, D.C., Volume 51, Number 7, page 86. Second Lieutenant James Y. Eastman, seventh bombardment group, March field [sic], was burned to death here last night when the twin engined Douglas bomber he was flying from Salt Lake City to Seattle in preparation to the war department carrying the mail, crashed and burned. It was misty at the time of the crash and witnesses said the plane was flying low just before the crash. According to Mrs. Clarence Wilson, eyewitness, the plane came skimming in low over the trees, its motor roaring. It passed over the house, she said, then suddenly crashed into the ground about one hundred feet beyond, bursting into flame. Mrs. Wilson immediately ran into the house and called the sheriff at Jerome, six miles from the scene. The Jerome fire department was rushed to the place. Eastman's body was dragged from the still burning plane and taken to the Jerome motuary [sic]. The victim was unmarried. His father is H. G. Eastman, who resides in Huntsville, Texas.
16 February Another army pilot on an experimental flight made a forced landing near Linden, New Jersey, when he ran out of fuel. LINDEN, N.J., Feb. 17. – (UP) – Lieutenant Joseph W. Kelly, army pilot scheduled to fly the mails, escaped injury last night when he ran out of fuel and made a forced landing in a wooded section. Kelly was making an experimental flight from Columbus, Ohio, to Newark, New Jersey. 19 February An hour and a half after leaving Atlanta with the army's first airmail plane, Lieut. E. T. Gorman, of Mitchell [sic] Field crashed at the Greenville (S.C.) airport last night after attempting five landings. He was not hurt. Circling the field in an effort accurately to read the wind sock, Gorman came in down wind at too rapid speed and overran the apron. His plane struck a two-foot hedge at the end of the field and nosed over, bending the propeller and washing out one wheel of the undercarriage. The mail was transferred to the northbound Birmingham Special leaving here at 10:20 and consigned to Charlotte, where it was to be picked up by a plane sent down from Richmond and flown to Newark, N. J. Gorman arrived over the field at 9:35. It took him 10 minutes to land. After skimming over the field, he crashed into the hedge and left one wheel in a cotton field that bounds the airport on the southwest. The pilot took off from Atlanta with the first army mail plane to leave that city at 8:15, Eastern Standard time, with an 'average' load of mail. The takeoff was delayed 35 minutes awaiting a mail ship from New Orleans. The weather was clear and cold throughout his flight northward. The plane was due in Greenville at 9:15 but was late because of the delayed start. The schedule calls for northbound army mail planes to arrive at 9:15 p. m., and southbound ships at 5:15 a. m. Observation planes are being used.Anderson, South Carolina, "Bad Break Given New Mail Fliers", The Record, Tuesday 20 February 1934, Volume 3, pages 1,2.
19 February MANSFIELD, O., Feb 19. – (UP) – An army biplane lay in a mass of wreckage on a farm near here today as a result of the first air mishap in Ohio as the army prepared to take over operation of the airmail service. Lost in a snowstorm while en route to take up his new assignment at Columbus, the pilot, Lieut, J. H. Gibson, was forced to 'bail out' when his gasoline supply ran low. He landed safely a mile and a half from the spot where his plane crashed.United Press, "Army Planes Start Carrying The Mail With Storm Many Areas", Madera Daily Tribune and Madera Mercury, Madera, California, Monday 19 February 1934, Volume LXIII, Number 91, page 1.
20 February Lieutenant John C. Crosthwaite, on the first U.S. Army airmail flight between San Francisco and Salt Lake City, is forced down by a local storm at Sacramento, California. The next flight is cancelled. "The plane carrying the southern mail to Newark got as far as Washington at 2:40 a. m., where it was grounded by bad weather."United Press, "Storms Delay Army Flyers – Army Air Mail Craft Fight With Elements To Get Mail Through", Madera Daily Tribune and Madera Mercury, Madera, California, Tuesday 20 February 1934, Volume LXIII, Number 92, page 1.
22 February Lieutenant Durwood O. Lowry, of the 17th Pursuit Squadron,Copp, DeWitt S., "A Few Great Captains: The Men and Events That Shaped the Development of U.S. Air Power", The Air Force Historical Foundation, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, Library of Congress catalog card number 78-22310, , page 190. 1st Pursuit Group, is killed in the crash of an Air Corps Curtiss O-39 Falcon, 32-216, whilst carrying the U.S. Mail, near Deshler, Ohio. His mother, Mrs. Dorothy Lowry Reisdorf, of Detroit, was quoted by the Associated Press, stating, "Good as they are, these Selfridge Field fliers shouldn't have to fly at night through winter storms over unfamiliar courses that it took months for commercial pilots to learn."Associated Press, "Pilots Crash Carrying Mail – Four Army Fliers Killed, Several Injured in Their New Task", The Columbia Record, Columbia, South Carolina, Friday 23 February 1934, Volume XXXVII, Number 261, page 1. Lowry's plane, carrying a capacity load (358 pounds of mail)United Press, "Crashes Of Mail Planes Fatal To Two Army Fliers", The Record, Anderson, South Carolina, Friday 23 February 1934, Volume 3, page 1. on the Chicago-Toledo route, came down far off its course, in a snowstorm.Greenville, South Carolina, "Army's First Mail Pilot To Die", The Greenville Piedmont, Greenville, South Carolina, Saturday 24 February 1934, Volume 103, Number 32, page one. The observation plane nose-dived into some woods, but Lowry managed to "throw some of his mail free before the crash."Associated Press, "Army Air Mail Pilot Dies As Plane Crashes – Flier Saves Part of Mail Before Falling; Others Are Forced Down", The Columbia Record, Columbia, South Carolina, Thursday 22 February 1934, Volume XXXVII, Number 260, page 1. His plane was demolished and the mail bags were scattered for some distance behind the place at which the wrecked machine came to rest. Lowry's body was torn to bits. He apparently had attempted to bail out, but a knot in the parachute cord is believed to have caught in a part of the plane and trapped him. Marks in the woods showed that the plane struck the ground, went forward some distance due to its momentum, and then nosed into the bank of a creek in the woods. The plane was demolished. Residents of the vicinity said Lowry apparently had trouble with his motor and had circled in a search for a landing place. Charles G. Thurston said he heard the plane pass over his farm home shortly before 6 a.m. (E. S. T.) Then he heard the motor being cut off. He said he opened a window and then heard the crash. Thurston telephoned to the Napoleon airport and then went out and found the body and the wreckage. Cutting off the ignition probably saved the wreckage from being destroyed by flames. Guarding the mail to the last, Lowry threw several sacks from the plane before the crash and it was believed all of the mail was recovered. Coroner Guy G. Boyer of Henry county, [sic] was expected to have the body removed to Napoleon.Associated Press, "Army Air Mail Pilot Dies As Plane Crashes – Flier Saves Part of Mail Before Falling; Others Are Forced Down", The Columbia Record, Columbia, South Carolina, Thursday 22 February 1934, Volume XXXVII, Number 260, page 9.