photograph courtesy wikipedia / public domain
A DC-3 passenger plane similar to this one plunged into the Mississippi near Memphis. Investigators never determined the cause of the crash.
The witnesses testifying at the Civil Aeronautics Board Accident Investigation, held in Memphis on February 22, 1944, couldn’t agree on what they had heard in the skies over Arkansas 12 days earlier. A half-hour before midnight on February 10, they had looked up as American Airlines Trip 2, dubbed the Sun Country Special, flew overhead. Some reported the propeller-driven plane’s engines sounded normal. Two boys, just a few miles farther east, said the plane backfired several times. Others claimed the engines went silent, then restarted with a bang. The last witness, a watchman on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers vessel moored along the banks of the Mississippi River, heard an unusual whistling noise, “like a rocket going off.”
What he saw was the most critical testimony of all. Instead of its normal cruising altitude of 5,000 feet, the twin-engine passenger plane had plunged to 200 feet and barely cleared the Arkansas levee. With the right wing tilted downward, the plane plunged into the river at the bend around Cow Island, just 18 miles south of Memphis. With a tremendous explosion and fireball, the aircraft disintegrated, killing everyone aboard — 21 passengers and three crew members. As one of the investigators described the scene, “it was like throwing a water-filled paper bag against a concrete wall.” At that time, the crash of the Sun Country Special became the second-worst disaster in the history of American aviation. To this day, the cause of the tragedy remains a mystery.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The Arkansas II was one of several U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that took part in salvage operations.
American Airlines Captain Dale B. Francis, age 39, pulled the big plane up to the runway, went over the pre-flight checklist, and waited for the all-clear command from the tower at Adams Field, the airport at Little Rock. An experienced pilot, he had joined American in 1939 as a first officer and had flown as a captain since 1942. During that time, he had logged some 13,500 hours in the air, more than half of those on the popular DC-3, the dual-engine aircraft that had become the workhorse for commercial and military airlines.
Powered by Wright Cyclone 1,200-horsepower engines, the DC-3 was conceived in 1936 when the CEO of American Airlines contacted the Douglas Aircraft Corporation of Santa Monica, California. He wondered if they could design a plane capable of carrying either cargo or passengers (or sometimes both), and was durable enough to handle the toughest flying conditions. The DC-3 quickly became the mainstay of American Airlines and other carriers, and this particular flight, called simply Trip 2, followed a transcontinental path that linked Los Angeles with New York, with three refueling stops along the way. The cross-country journey took only 18 hours.
The plane itself, tail number NC 21767, had flown some 10,000 hours since leaving the factory in 1939. It had been overhauled on December 24, 1943, and the propellers had also been replaced at that time. According to the Civil Aeronautics Administration records, “the maintenance of this aircraft was satisfactory.”
Sharing the cockpit that evening was First Officer Raymond R. Majors. Just 25 years old, he had joined American in 1942 and had accumulated only 1,900 hours of flight time, with some 300 hours flying a DC-3. The third member of the crew was Dovie Holybee, the stewardess, who had been with American Airlines since 1942. She would be in charge of 21 passengers, who filled every seat. Half of those were military personnel, being shuttled around the country to other assignments. Of the non-military passengers, one worked for the Sperry Corporation in New York, one was a doctor in Philadelphia, and the others’ occupations were not recorded.
Within three miles of the river, John Lee William noticed the plane flew over his farm unusually low. He later told reporters, “The motors stopped running, started up again with very loud roars and popping, and then the plane disappeared over the levee.”
The plane also carried nine canvas bags stuffed with 358 pounds of airmail. The ground crew at Little Rock filled the fuel tanks, so the plane was carrying its maximum amount of fuel, more than 400 gallons. Even so, the DC-3 was such a workhorse, that even with the full complement of passengers, mail, and fuel, it wasn’t considered overloaded.
The weather that night was clear, with no storms in the area, and only light gusts of wind. By all accounts, it should have been a routine flight. Captain Francis pulled back on the throttles, rolled his plane down the runway, and the big plane lifted off at precisely 10:56 p.m. With a cruising speed of 207 miles per hour, the Sun Country Special would touch down in Memphis in less than an hour, arriving here at 11:40 p.m.
In those days, smaller airports like Little Rock and Memphis didn’t track commercial airplanes with radar. Instead the pilots followed a series of radio beacons, which operated on different frequencies, while also communicating with the nearest towers by radio messages. Since the DC-3 didn’t have jet engines, it flew at much lower altitudes to take advantage of the heavier air. At a cruising altitude of 5,000 feet (less than a mile), pilots could use highways, buildings, rivers, and other features as landmarks.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The DC-3 disintegrated when it hit the water, leaving only tangled pieces of the wreckage.
As the plane approached Memphis, the tower contacted Francis and instructed him to land here, so he could pick up a “high-priority” passenger bound for Nashville. These were war times, and this happened frequently; “high-priority” usually meant “high-ranking.” In this case, however, with his plane full, Francis would have to exchange one of his passengers for the new one, and reports indicate a brief radio conversation about the weight of the passenger and his luggage, so the transfer would be smooth. This last communication would be the last anyone would ever receive from the Sun Country Special.
When the DC-3 was still about 20 miles from the river, several witnesses on the ground noticed it flying overhead, but as they later told investigators, didn’t think anything was unusual. That situation began to change rapidly as the airplane continued eastward. Within three miles of the river, John Lee William noticed the plane flew over his farm unusually low. He later told reporters, “The motors stopped running, started up again with very loud roars and popping, and then the plane disappeared over the levee.”
Not too far away, two young brothers, Joe and Henry Qualls, also saw the low-flying plane, as they walked along a country road. They testified at the CAB hearing that it “backfired loudly as it went overhead and then went silent.”
The Commercial Appeal published a diagram tracing the last moments of the flight.
The chief witness was Charles Williams, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers watchman, who saw the DC-3 come within a hundred feet of his barge. He had time to notice that the plane’s red and green navigation lights “were blinking off and on” and both engines were “roaring at an awful speed.” To his horror, he watched as the plane then plunged directly into the river.
“Suddenly, the plane hit the water about 150 to 200 yards off the barge with a loud noise and burst of flame and sank immediately,” he later told The Commercial Appeal. “For a moment a ball of fire seemed to roll forward on the water and then it too disappeared. The waves from it rocked the heavy barge.”
Williams ran to wake his foreman, W.R. Wellborn. The two unlashed a smaller powerboat and headed for the crash site. According to The Commercial Appeal, “They found no trace of oil, floating wreckage, or even bubbles and returned to shore. Wellborn then walked to a farmhouse a half mile away and called the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in West Memphis.”
By this time, officials at the Memphis airport had noticed the Sun Country Special was overdue, but couldn’t understand what had happened. Just as it approached the river, the plane passed over a “fan beacon,” which was supposed to alert the pilot to switch to the radio frequency used by the Memphis tower. When Francis failed to do so, the tower tried to contact the plane four times, without success. By this time, it should have been in view, if not already approaching the runway for a landing. All alerts now went out, to the U.S. Coast Guard and even the Memphis Police Department, to be on the lookout for the missing plane, thinking that it had perhaps made a forced landing in the cotton fields on either side of the river.
Boats gathering at the crash site realized the scope of the tragedy when debris such as luggage and seat cushions from the crash began to float to the surface or wash ashore. The plane had now been underwater long enough that there was no hope of survival for the passengers or crew, so Corps of Engineers vessels began to converge at Cow Island to develop a salvage plan. The river was 25 feet deep at that bend, but a DC-3 stood almost 20 feet tall, from ground to tail tip, so they at least held out hope the plane was intact, and would be found easily. That hope was quickly dashed; the entire plane had somehow disappeared beneath the muddy water, so searchers would have to wait for morning light to begin their grim task.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Parts salvaged from the river, such as this tail wheel, were stacked on barges while investigators looked for clues to the cause of the crash.
Memphians were no doubt stunned to pick up their newspapers the next day and read the front-page headline: “Big Airliner Plunges In River Near Here; 24 Persons Aboard.” Some remembered that a similar disaster had taken place at almost the same spot just eight years earlier; in that case, the plane — also a DC-3 — crashed into woods near the river, with no survivors. Older readers remembered that back in 1925, the sinking of the M.E. Norman had also taken place at the Cow Island bend. Tom Lee became a national hero by single-handedly rescuing some 30 passengers, but another 23 drowned, and many of the victims’ bodies were not recovered for weeks, their remains sometimes found miles downstream. Officials here hoped they could recover the victims of the Sun Country Special quickly; it was the least they could do for their families.
A professional diver was brought in early Friday morning. In the days before SCUBA gear, divers clambered into bulky canvas suits, strapped on weight belts and lead shoes, and bolted on a heavy brass diving helmet. A lifeline — a cable with an airline — was their only link to the surface, and the dive would turn deadly if something sharp — a ragged piece of airplane wing, for example — tore open their suit or sliced their oxygen line. The diver’s efforts were futile, however. The current was too powerful for him to stay in one place, and the always muddy river, with a deep layer of silt on the bottom, reduced visibility to zero. After several attempts, he gave up.
“The power behind the impact has convinced searchers that death intervened so swiftly that none of the passengers knew what happened.” — The Commercial Appeal
This now became a full-scale salvage operation, and the Corps of Engineers brought in the huge dredge vessel Ockerson and another boat, Arkansas II, equipped with grappling hooks and wire nets, in an attempt to snare portions of the wreck. What they soon discovered, however, was that the airplane was no longer intact. The impact with the water had shattered the plane — and its occupants — into thousands of pieces.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The dredge had massive scoops that would dig into the riverbed and deposit what it found on the deck of a nearby barge, where investigators looked through everything. The Arkansas’ grappling hooks accomplished the same thing. Considering the size of the search area, this was slow, tedious work — the temperature had dropped below freezing — and often gruesome, as the crews began to turn up passengers’ belongings and then human remains.
Pieces of the plane began to fill the deck of the barge: the twisted door of the luggage department, a portion of the tail, pieces of a wing, a propeller blade, a landing wheel, even an engine. The Commercial Appeal kept a running inventory of the personal items located: “a large thermos jug from which the plane’s hostess had served coffee, a Naval ensign’s coat, an Army officer’s flying boot, and two briefcases that bore the names of passengers. The fact that this scattered debris was far downstream [from the crash site] seemed to confirm the belief that the airliner disintegrated after striking the water at nearly 200 miles an hour.”
The newspaper coverage repeatedly emphasized the force of the crash. When a row of seats was snagged by the grappling hooks and tugged to the surface, the reporter noted, “The mute evidence of arm rests, each twisted in an almost identical manner, tells of the tremendous impact and quick disintegration.” Perhaps this was designed to make readers understand — or at least hope — that the passengers hadn’t suffered: “The power behind the impact has convinced searchers that death intervened so swiftly that none of the passengers knew what happened.”
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Waterlogged suitcases belonged to the passengers aboard the Sun Country Special.
But where were all those passengers? The plane had crashed on a Thursday night. For three days, the salvage vessels brought up pieces of the plane. Finally, on Monday, The Commercial Appeal headline announced, “River Begins To Give Up Its Plane Dead.” The dredging had turned up five bodies: Captain Edgar Zarr of Dallas; Lieutenant Victor Ramsey of Youngstown, Ohio; Lieutenant Charles Spring of Camp Young, California; and Lieutenant Herbert Sudmeir of Nashville. These men were all military personnel. A fifth body was recovered at the same time, a civilian from Whittier, California, E.C. Miller. The newspaper noted that “only Lieutenant Ramsey’s body was in good condition. The others were mutilated in varying degrees” — either by the crash or by the dredge — “and were identified by military identification tags or items in their clothing.”
Day after day, the investigation began to split into two phases: the physical recovery of items from the crash site, and an analysis of everything in an attempt to find a cause. After all, something had happened so quickly to bring this aircraft down that the pilots apparently had no time to alert the airports. But in these days before “black boxes” recorded control inputs (flaps, throttle, and more) and cockpit voice recordings, they could only rely on the physical evidence left behind.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Investigators noted that several of the bodies still had their seat belts around them, buckled even though they were no longer attached to the seat; the force had ripped out the bolts. However, as the newspaper reported, “That the belts were fastened does not prove anything. It is conceivable that the belts were ordered fastened when the pilot found his ship was out of control. On the other hand, it is thoroughly possible that the signal for passengers to cease smoking and fasten their seatbelts had been switched on” as the Sun Country Special prepared to land.
An important clue surfaced when searchers found the plane’s “parachute flare” still in its launching tube. This is a special light that a pilot drops at night to prepare for an emergency landing; it illuminates the field or highway where he hopes to put his crippled airliner down. The fact that this safety device remained unused told investigators that a forced landing — at night, remember — wasn’t an option. Pilots who knew Captain Francis expressed doubt that he would try to land on a river bank, and certainly not in the river itself, when the lights of the Memphis airport were visible in the distance.
A sixth body was pulled up on the afternoon of February 14. It was the remains of Lieutenant Linton M. Seifert of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, but stationed at Camp Young, California.
By this time, the dredges and grappling hooks had managed to retrieve almost 75 percent of the airplane, though nothing showed any structural failure. Considering the possibility that something had struck the plane while it was airborne, or some key component had failed in mid-flight, authorities recruited Boy Scouts to scour the woods for two miles west of the crash site, looking for any pieces that may have broken off. They also offered a reward to anyone who uncovered a piece of the plane. Several people came forward with various metal scraps discovered in the woods, but they found nothing from the DC-3.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Investigators identified these pieces, scooped up by the dredge, as fragments of the airplane’s seat cushions.
This being wartime, authorities couldn’t completely rule out sabotage. Witness testimony indicated no evidence of a bomb, but experts took the time to analyze the contents of the thermos bottle that had belonged to the stewardess. It contained no poison, or anything that she might have used to incapacitate the pilots.
The plane’s log book, with its aluminum cover twisted and dented, turned up in one of the dredge deposits, but authorities knew it would offer few clues. Whatever happened to this plane, it was impossible that the captain or first officer took the time to keep a record of it.
Experts also examined what was left of the controls and instrument panel. Their conclusion was that nothing indicated the pilots attempted to change anything — reducing or increasing the throttles, switching the fuel tank valves, lowering the landing gear, turning on the landing lights, changing the flaps — in response to an emergency, or to prepare for an emergency landing. Whatever brought the plane down happened so quickly the crew had no time to react, or to even issue a “Mayday” call over the radio.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Grappling hooks were used to snag any pieces of the plane. The muddy water made diving efforts impossible.
More recent aviation tragedies have been attributed to a sudden depressurization of the cabin, which could have rendered everyone aboard unconscious within minutes. But these accidents involved modern jetliners flying above 25,000 feet, where the air is thin. At the low cruising level of the DC-3, even if a door or cargo hatch opened, that wouldn’t have brought down the plane.
Then investigators focused on an intriguing possibility. It would be decades before the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” showed that a flock of geese could bring down a modern-day jetliner by fracturing the blades of its engines, forcing the pilot to make a “controlled water landing” of U.S. Airways 1249 in the Hudson River. Even so, CAB experts considered the possibility of a “bird strike.” After all, the general conclusion was that something had caused the DC-3 pilots to lose control of their plane in a manner of minutes, if not seconds. That would certainly happen if a flock of birds crashed through the plane’s windshield, injuring or even killing both pilots.
It’s not as farfetched as it sounds. One of the searchers, examining a leather suitcase brought to the surface, was confounded by the discovery of feathers that appeared to be driven into the side of the luggage. Experts determined these came from two different birds, a lesser scaup duck and snowy owl, noting that “neither of these types of feathers was used in the passenger pillows.” So they interviewed pilots who had encountered flocks of birds — or even a single large bird — while flying. Although the airmen reported damage and even cracked windshields, investigators never found any instance of an airplane crashing as a result. They also interviewed the witnesses, who said they had noticed no flocks of birds on the night of the crash. “It is possible that these feathers became attached to the luggage while in the water,” concluded the CAB report, while admitting, “although these feathers are not considered evidence that the airplane collided with birds, such a possibility cannot be entirely discounted.”
The remaining bodies continued to elude searchers, who warned that “all wreckage and bodies are now wholly or partially covered with sand, making it necessary to bite deep into the bottom with the heavy dipper.” This partly explains why the only human remains being located now were “several parts of bone and flesh.”
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Investigators searched through personal items — clothing and luggage pulled from the river — and tried to return items to surviving family members.
A surprising find came six days after the crash, when eight mailbags were found in a small area on the bottom of the river, and the ninth bag was found washed ashore, miles downstream. Post Office officials quickly confiscated the bags — containing 378 pounds of airmailed letters and packages — and took the time to sort them out, dry everything, and send everything to the proper recipients.
The last body turned up on February 19, which, “because of extensive deterioration,” could only be identified by its blue American Airlines necktie. This was evidence that the remains were that of the captain or first pilot. Fingerprints were sent to the airline headquarters in New York, for comparison with their records. Within a few days, the results confirmed that the last body recovered from the wreck was First Officer Ray Majors.
Portions of an eighth body were also pulled from the water that day, and this was a particularly gruesome find. They were the leg and foot of a woman. Only two women were aboard that flight — Stewardess Dovie Holybee of Armore, Oklahoma, and Lieutenant Elizabeth McGuire from Little Rock, who was a member of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). The Commercial Appeal, which had covered this disaster in such detail, never reported how — or if — the identity of these remains was ever established.
Courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
After several weeks, some 90 percent of the plane was recovered. But searchers found the remains of only eight of the plane's 27 passengers and crew.
The underwater search was finally called off on February 22, almost two weeks after the crash. It had been one of the most difficult recovery operations and crash investigations in the history of the Civil Aeronautics Board. Teams aboard multiple vessels had worked 24 hours a day in miserable, dangerous conditions. The official statement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was: “Having effected recovery of 95 percent of the aircraft involved in an accident in the Mississippi River near Memphis on February 10, due to rising river conditions and the slim possibility of effecting additional recovery at this time, salvage operations of the aircraft are being discontinued.”
Boats up and down the river were encouraged to “be on the lookout” for anything in the water or along the banks that may be related to the plane. Nothing significant ever turned up.
The very next day, the Civil Aeronautics Board opened its investigation into the crash. They brought forth 19 witnesses, along with experts from the Civil Aeronautics Authority, American Airlines, the U.S. Weather Bureau, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other government agencies. The result of their detailed investigation was summed up concisely: “The Board is unable to determine the probable cause of this accident based upon the available evidence which has been collected in the present investigation.”
This was an unfortunate conclusion. If experts couldn’t determine what had caused the disaster, especially if it was mechanical failure, how could they prevent a similar tragedy from happening again? Even more troubling, of course, was the complete loss of life for all aboard. The seven bodies recovered were sent to the J.T. Hinton Funeral Home in Memphis, for preparation for transfer to the victims’ hometown mortuaries. For the 17 others, their final resting place would be the Mississippi River.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers digital library has a gallery of photographs taken during the recovery operations for the Sun Country Special. Here are a few of those images.
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