TWA Flight 6 – Timeline

Almost nine decades ago today, May 6, a then strikingly modern and luxurious Douglas DC-2 crashed in fog covered rural Missouri. The crash killed 5 of 13 aboard, and resulted in one of the largest government investigation into a plane crash up to that time. Today, it is almost totally forgotten. Below is my attempt at recreating the approximate timeline of the flight, crash, and immediate aftermath from the easily available historic documentation. Additional historic context is also provided within the timeline, and will be updated as I continue to fill in gaps and sort out inconsistencies. Some times given are precise, most are estimates based on context and numerous descriptions of sequence and duration. All times are local.

May 5, 1935

16:00 – Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA) Flight 6 takes off from Los Angeles airport for an overnight 16 hour coast-to-coast trip to New York (Newark, New Jersey). The “Sky Chief” trip tonight is operated on a brand new Douglas DC-2 (NC13785) all-metal aircraft. The DC-2 is the pride of TWA’s fleet. Its many modern and high end qualities are highlighted in TWA timetables from the year. At the controls are pilot Harvey Bolton, 28 and co-pilot Kenneth H. Greeson both based in Kansas City. The tri-motored DC-2 has only four scheduled stops on its cross-country journey: Albuquerque, NM; Kansas City, MO; Chicago, IL; and Pittsburgh, PA. This is significantly down from closer to ten stops offered by TWA in the years prior, and unmatched at the time. In the back, ten passengers are distributed among seven rows containing two seats each. Most of the passengers would be remaining with the flight for the entire trip east.

16:30 – The wife of a TWA pilot, June Mesker spends some of the first flight talking with the pilot, Bolton. “…we’ve got a good gang on tonight” she recalls him saying as some of the passengers took pictures from the ship, while others socialized. Mesker and another passenger, Jeanne Virginia Anne Hillias, are traveling non-rev in the first row of seats of the cabin. Hillias is the sister of TWA dispatcher Marmaduke Hillias, who is working part of TWA flight 6 this evening.

16:45 – The sun sets behind Flight 6 while it crosses over the Mojave Desert of southern California. Mesker remembers that “all exclaimed at the wonderful spectacle of sunset over the mountains.” Ahead of them, the edges of seemingly bottomless canyons carved out by the Colorado river may have just been visible in the tangential light. Excitement in the cabin likely began to naturally wane as the flight continued to darken heading east toward New Mexico. The remainder of the first leg of the trip is smooth and unremarkable. “There wasn’t a hint of tragedy.”

18:00 – Co-pilot Greeson serves dinner to the passengers. There are no cabin crew/flight attendants on TWA flights of the time, and theose responsibilities fall to the co-pilot. At some point during the flight, Greeson aides Mesker in moving from her original seat in the front row to number 10, close to the rear of the aircraft. Mesker hoped to nap, and her seat in row one was blocked from fully reclining by the front cabin wall. This move probably saved her life.

20:50 – Flight 6 arrives at Albuquerque, NM ten minutes early. The short refueling stop is also used to examine the aircrafts radio equipment??. MORE HERE Senator Bronson M. Cutting [R-NM], who had been visiting his mother in the state, joins the 10 other passengers and two pilots for trip east. He takes seat 11, in the back half of the passenger cabin. 

21:15 – TWA Flight 6 departs Albuquerque on-time into the dark for the second leg of its journey, a 750 mile trip to Kansas City in Missouri. Lasting about 4 hours and 40minutes, this will be the longest of the five flights on tonight’s trip. This segment takes the aircraft over an expanse of sparsely populated and mostly featureless earth. The moon is most prominent source of external light, and it is only a thin sliver tonight. The DC-2 cruises low and slow by modern standards, less than 200MPH and below 10,000ft…

11:45 – The flight is smooth and relatively quiet over the empty landscape around the Oklahoma panhandle. Richard Wallace recalls falling asleep around now. Paul Wing, Mrs. Kaplan, and Henry Sharpe are also asleep in the cabin as the night marches on.

May 6, 1935

00:30 – Continuing north and east out of the arid air of the American southwest and into the moist Gulf of Mexico atmosphere funneled north into the plains states, TWA 6 enters clouds and fog over the flatlands of Kansas.

02:24 – TWA Flight 8 lands at Kansas City just ahead of Flight 6. The cloud ceiling is only 450 feet, below that allowed to land the DC-2 flying TWA flight 6 approximately 30 minutes behind.

02:40 – Flight 6 is due to arrive in Kansas City. Some family of Jeanne Virginia Anne Hillias are waiting at the airport for her arrival. Hillias’ is returning home just in time for her 21st birthday in two days on May 8th.

02:45 – Mesker wakes at the rear of the aircraft to an inky blackness outside her window. She asks Mr. Kaplan for the time and notices the slight delay to their arrial, but still believes they will be arriving at Kansas City soon. The aircraft continues onward through the dark in the low clouds and fog.

02:50 – Haueter (?) attempts to tell Bolton to make only one attempt in landing at Kansas City. With the poor weather, and Flight 6 coming off the end of nearly five hours of flight, the aircraft does not have fuel reserves to waste time circling and hoping for the weather to improve.

02:56 – The DC-2 fails to break through the clouds and land at Kansas City. Mesker senses the aircraft circling and descending for a shot time. She assumes they will soon land. The flight however levels off and the occasionally visible city lights again disappear from view.

03:00 – Haueter instructs Bolton to fly toward Burlington, IA and land at the first available field. TWA 6 flies through the fog toward Kirksville, MO. It may have first proceeded east toward STL before turning north, or perhaps took a more direct route to the northeast. The precise advancement of the aircraft out of Kansas City is unknown.

03:28 – The DC-2 approaches northern central Missouri and descends closer and closer to the ground. It exits and reenters low clouds while the pilots search for a suitable location to land as the fuel supply dwindles. Most passengers are still asleep, but some soon become aware of their proximity to the ground.

03:29 – The relative quiet in the aircraft cabin is broken by a loud exclamation from C. Drew, one of the paramount passengers. “My God, what went past that wing?! Did you see that?” Mr. Kaplan, seated behind him responds in the affirmative. Mesker overhears this and jumps from her seat to look out the window. She later recalls seeing nothing in the dark, and sitting back down.

03:29 – On the ground, several farmers south of Barnesville, MO see the aircraft extraordinarily low in the air. Irvin Pfeifer says the aircraft’s lights lit up his son’s home across the road when it passed his own. He claims the aircraft missed home by 200ft and was only 30ft above the ground at the time. Flight 6 turns left from an eastward flight path to the north and then toward the west.

03:29 – The “Please adjust seat belts” light at the front of the cabin comes on, and is noticed by several of those passengers still awake. This seatbelt light was one of the first iterations of that particular safety feature in commercial aviation, and likely saved several lives in the moments that followed.

03:29 – Copilot Greeson calls to the passengers to “Buckle your belts tight!”

03:30 – In the last row of seats of the passenger cabin, Dora Metzger buckles her seatbelt. She then picks up baby Dorothea from playing on the floor near her feet. “I was dozing, about to fall asleep. All of a sudden I caught the flicker of the light at the head of the cabin… I thought maybe we were going to land at Kansas City.” Paul Wing also see the warning and secures his seatbelt.

03:30 – Mr. Kaplan reaches across the aisle to assist Ms. Kaplan, who is asleep “…but it was too late.”

03:30 – Impact

03:30 – The DC-2’s left wing makes contact with a hill on the east side of a dirt road. The wing tip digs a hole into the ground and sends the aircraft into a cartwheel over the roadway. As it crosses the road, one of the plane’s engines drops from its wing and comes to rest on the road’s edge. The stricken craft bounces and rips open upon impacting the western side of the road after tearing through a small patch of trees. The remains of the DC-2 come to rest partially inverted across a small stream. Passengers and the pilots are scattered across the field and stream mixed in with mud and debris. Jeanne Hillias, Senator Cutting, and Co-Pilot Greeson are killed.

03:30 – Just up the road from the wreck, Charles and ?? Bledsoe are awakened by a “roar and a cash. It came from the south, but we did not know what it was.” They look out the window into the low hanging clouds over an obscured night, but see nothing and return to bed. Mr. Bledsoe is unable to get back to sleep.

03:32 – Passenger Henry Sharpe wakes up on the ground, asleep at time of crash and ejected from the cabin. He sees Mr. Kaplan, unconscious nearby among other passengers and mangled wreckage.

03:35 – Mesker regains consciousness to baby Dorthea crying nearby. Her shoes were knocked off in the crash, and she takes a pair from an unknown man on the ground nearby. Mesker and Kaplan survivors go looking for help, and it becomes clear that Mr. Kaplan’s ankle is broken.

03:40 – Mesker and Kaplan make it to the nearest building, the farm home of Philip Nuhn, on whose property the DC-2 has crashed. Kaplan says later that “We climbed a fence and crossed a road and at last found a house. We pounded on the door.” In the quiet misty dark after the crash they had come to the abandoned home of Philip Nuhn. “Our hearts sank. It was empty…” But from the silence of the predawn hours “suddenly we heard a dog barking. We walked that way.” “The noise of that dog barking was the sweetest sound I ever heard” says Mesker later.

03:45 – Kaplan and Mesker arrive at the Gentner home. Mesker helps warm water with Mrs. Gentner who soon leaves to get the baby still at the scene. Mr. Gentner leaves to the Bledsoe farm for a phone.

04:16 – Charles Bledsoe gets out of bed at 4:15 every day, he had been awake since the crash. Bland Gentner arrives while Bledsoe is getting dressed. “Charlie! Charlie! There’s been a terrible airplane crash.” They call for help with the phone, and Bledsoe makes his way to the crash scene while Gentner catches his breath at the Bledsoe home before rejoining at the site.

04:20 – Everett Wiggans arrives with a truck at the crash scene, and speaks to the pilot whose main concern was his passengers: “Get the passengers out of there quick… they are all hurt badly. Don’t bother about me.” He tells the locals arriving at the crash scene to take the doors from the nearby home of Philip Nuhn. Bledsoe testifies later that “We had no stretchers available and some doors were taken off of the house that was empty down there near the wreck. Five doors were taken off the house.” The injured were carried on the doors north up the road to the Bledsoe home where they waited in the living room for proper medical evacuation. For hours they waited, in silence? Able to sleep or at least have a stiff drink and cigarette? I have found nothing in reference to the time spent in Charles and ??? Bledsoe’s living room.

06:05 – The sun rises in Atlanta, MO on May 6th, 1935.

06:30 – An ambulance arrives at the Bledsoe home to take survivors to Samaritan Hospital in Macon, MO. The dead are taken to Stephens & Goodding Funeral Home. Richard Wallace wakes up in the hospital, with no recollection of the crash or aftermath.

Pilot Bolton dies on the way to the hospital or shortly after arrival. Mrs. Kaplan’s injuries are severe and she passes the following day after a surgery that revealed her spinal cord had been transected. The other passengers are variably injured most with broken bones and chest injuries requiring some stay in the hospital, but with no additional fatalities.

Passengers and and Crew Pictures. Map.