• 1957 •

Date / Time: Thursday, January 31, 1957 / 11:18 a.m.
Operator / Flight No.: Douglas Aircraft Company / Non-Commercial Test Flight
Location: Near Sunland, Calif.

Details and Probable Cause: Midair collision. A crew of four was aboard the four-engine Douglas DC-7B aircraft (N8210H) as it departed Santa Monica Municipal Airport at 10:15 a.m. on the first functional test flight of the brand-new airliner prior to its eventual delivery to Continental Airlines.

Co-pilot for the routine Douglas Aircraft Co. test flight was veteran flier Archie R. Twitchell, 50, who enjoyed a secondary career as an actor between flying stints and appeared in over 100 films, including Union Pacific, I Wanted Wings, Among the Living, Out of the Past, Fort Apache, I Shot Billy The Kid and Sunset Boulevard, among many others. The remaining DC-7B crew consisted of pilot William G. Carr, 36; flight engineer Waldo B. Adams, 42; and radio operator Roy T. Nakazawa, 28.

That same morning, in Palmdale, a two-man U.S. Air Force Northrop F-89J Scorpion jet fighter (52-1870A) took off at 10:50 a.m. on a similar test flight, one that involved a check of its on-board radar equipment.

By 11:00 a.m. both aircraft were performing their individual tests at an altitude of 25,000 feet in clear skies over the San Fernando Valley when, at about 11:18 a.m., a high-speed, near-head-on midair collision occurred. Investigators later determined that the two aircraft converged at a point in the sky approximately one to two miles northeast of the Hansen Dam spillway.

Following the collision, Curtiss Adams, the radarman aboard the eastbound twin-engine F-89J Scorpion, was able to bail out of the stricken fighter jet and, despite incurring serious burns, parachuted to a landing in Burbank. The fighter jet’s pilot, Roland E. Owen, died when the aircraft plummeted in flames into La Tuna Canyon in the Verdugo Mountains.

The last reported message from the fatally crippled westbound DC-7B airliner was from co-pilot Archie Twitchell, who radioed, “Mid-air collision! Mid-air collision! Ten-How (the plane’s radio designation) . . . We’re going in . . . uncontrollable . . . uncontrollable . . . Say good-bye to everybody.”

With a portion of its left wing sheared off and while raining debris onto the neighborhoods below, the DC-7B momentarily continued westbound, then rolled to the left and began a steepening, high-velocity dive earthward. The aircraft broke up at about 500 to 1,000 feet above the ground and seconds later the hurtling wreckage slammed into a Pacoima churchyard near the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Terra Bella Street, killing all four crew members on board.

Upon impact, the shattered DC-7B exploded into hundreds of flaming pieces that slashed across the adjacent playground of Pacoima Junior High School, where some 220 boys were just ending their outdoor athletics activities. Ronnie Brann, 13, and Robert Zallan, 12, were struck and killed by the flying blast of metal and debris from the crashing airliner. A third gravely injured student, Evan Elsner, 12, died two days later in a local hospital. An estimated 74 additional students on the playground suffered injuries ranging from minor to critical.

A second F-89 Scorpion jet, being used as a radar “target” by the first one during the equipment tests, was not involved in the collision and its two-man crew did not witness the accident.

The collision was blamed on pilot error: Failure of both aircraft crews to exercise proper “see and avoid” procedures regarding other aircraft while operating under visual flight rules (VFR).

The catastrophe prompted the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) to set restrictions on all aircraft test flights, both military and civilian, requiring that they be made over open water or specifically approved sparsely populated areas.

The Pacoima crash is referenced in the 1987 film La Bamba, a biographical account of the life of veteran rock ’n’ roll singer Ritchie Valens. Valens was a 15-year-old student at Pacoima Junior High at the time of the disaster, but was away from the school campus, attending the funeral of his grandfather, on the day of the crash. Ironically, Valens, along with fellow musicians Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), plus pilot Roger Peterson, would die just two years later in the crash of their chartered Beech Bonanza (N3794N) near Mason City, Iowa, in the early morning hours of February 3, 1959.

Pacoima Junior High School underwent a name change, to Pacoima Middle School, in 1992.

Fatalities: 8 -- 1 of 2 occupants of the F-89J Scorpion jet; all 4 crew members aboard the DC-7B airliner; and 3 junior high school students on the ground.

Douglas DC-7B


F-89J Scorpion jet