Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 was a domestic non-scheduled

passenger flight An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which ...

between

Hawthorne Industrial Airport Hawthorne Industrial Airport is a county-owned public-use airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially a ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

(HTH) and Hollywood-Burbank Airport,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

(BUR/KBUR) that crashed into terrain near the tallest mountain in the

contiguous United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

Mount Whitney Mount Whitney (Paiute: Tumanguya; ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'') is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of . It is in East–Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and Tu ...

, near Lone Pine, on February 18, 1969, killing all 35 passengers and crew on board.

History of flight

The aircraft, a

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

, was operating on a

visual flight rules In aviation, visual flight rules (VFR) are a set of regulations under which a pilot operates an aircraft in weather conditions generally clear enough to allow the pilot to see where the aircraft is going. Specifically, the weather must be better ...

plan. The crew consisted of Captain Fred Hall (43), and first officer Raymond Hamer (41), and one flight attendant, Patricia Nannes (21). It departed at 3:50 A.M. PST and last contact was made at 4:06 A.M. when the flight spoke with the Tonopah Flight Service Station. One hour later, at 5:10 A.M., the plane hit a sheer cliff face north of

, near

Tulainyo Lake Tulainyo Lake is a freshwater alpine lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada in the U.S. state of California, and one of the highest and largest of the alpine lakes of the Sierra. It lies in a large granite bowl bounded by the Sierra Crest to the n ...

at 11,770 feet (3,558 m). The main body of the wreckage then slid down the cliff and stopped some 500 feet (152 m) back from the cliff, where it caught fire. All 32 passengers and 3 crew members were killed.

Search and rescue operation

Extensive searches from air and ground were launched after the aircraft went missing, but snow, low clouds, and mountainous terrain hampered the search. The aircraft was finally located on August 8, 1969. The delay likely had no impact on the lack of survivors, as it is thought that all on board died on impact.

Investigation

The

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...

launched an extensive investigation upon the location of the wreckage. Its conclusions were as follows:

The accident was caused by the deviation from the prescribed route of flight, as authorized in the company's
FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
-approved operations specifications, resulting in the aircraft being operated under IFR weather conditions, in high mountainous terrain, in an area where there was a lack of radio navigation aids. The weather was also a contributing factor.

References

*
NTSB Report (PDF)
''ntsb.gov'' (, ''airdisaster.com'')
NTSB Summary

External links

Transcribed AP and UPI news articles from 1969
''gendisasters.com'' - includes names of those on board

''zoggavia.com'' - (later Nevada Airlines) {{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1969 1969 in California Airliner accidents and incidents involving controlled flight into terrain Airliner accidents and incidents caused by weather Accidents and incidents involving the Douglas DC-3 Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1969 Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Airliner accidents and incidents in California Hawthorne Nevada Airlines accidents and incidents History of Inyo County, California February 1969 events in the United States