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Mid-air collision over Canyon shocked world

(Editor's note: This Friday is the 50th anniversary of the mid-air collision over the Canyon that killed 128 people and led to reforms in commercial aviation. This article is reprinted from the July 5, 1956 Williams Grand Canyon News. See inside for details on a panel discussion on the tragedy this Friday at the Shrine of the Ages.)

The precipitous gorge of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River holds mute evidence of the worst disaster in the history of commercial aviation. Two giant airliners, a TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC7 plunged into the depths of the gorge shortly before noon Saturday, carrying to their deaths 128 persons.

One of the two liners, the TWA Super Constellation, carrying 64 passengers and six crewmen, plummeted to earth a short distance below where the Little Colorado flows into the main river while the DC7 fell about a mile downstream and within 500 feet from the rim.

Both planes fell in almost inaccessible spots in the narrow, rugged gorge but it was possible to land helicopters near the scene of the TWA wreckage. However, turbulent air currents in the canyon made this procedure slow and extremely hazardous and it was possible to take the copters down only during the early morning hours and then only one at a time.

This was not possible in the case of the DC7 which was on a precipitous crag offering no possible spot on which to drop a copter.

The first helicopter landed at the scene of the TWA early Sunday morning and the scene was described as the most gruesome the men had ever seen with the nearest resemblance to a human being half of a woman's body. The bodies were torn to bits and burned to such a stage that identification seems impossible. The tail assembly of the plane was pretty well intact but the rest was literally in shreds. Small pieces of metal were scattered here and there, and what remained of three of the four large motors.

Rescue crews began the removal of what was left of the bodies early Monday, the first brought out to the temporary morgue, the Coconino County fair grounds, being five plastic bags which arrived about noon on Monday. Turbulent currents prevented further transfers on Monday, but the remainder was brought out in 26 similar bags Tuesday morning.

The DC7 mission seems to be faced with an even greater problem than that presented by the TWA wreckage as it lies about 500 feet below the rim and can be reached only by experienced mountain climbers.

After the wreckage was sighted Sunday a helicopter hovered about 20 feet above it and brought back word that not a single body was to be seen there and little else other than ashes and bits of metal.

A number of expert mountain climbers from a Denver, Colorado, mountain climbing club arrived Tuesday to aid in the rescue attempt. In the meantime, the Swiss Airlines offered to send five Swiss mountain climbers trained in rescue work, and the offer was readily accepted. The five left Zurich, Switzerland, on Tuesday, flew to New York and on Wednesday were flown to Flagstaff and then to the Canyon.

The two planes, the TWA carrying 64 passengers and a crew of six and the DC7 carrying 53 passengers and a crew of five, left Los Angeles, California, three minutes apart Saturday morning and were holding at that time space when they checked in on crossing the California-Arizona border near Needles. They were to check in over the Painted Desert at about 11:32 but the only word at about that time was a flash from one of the planes, "We are goingÅ "

Many theories as to what happened have been advanced and many discounted but the generally accepted theory is that the planes collided at about the 21,000-foot altitude and plummeted straight to earth. Bits of metal with rubbings of blue paint on them are offered as evidence to support this theory and some of these pieces of metal will be removed from the crash for study and examination in an attempt to substantiate or disprove the general belief that the two planes collided at an altitude of 21,000 feet and plunged out of control almost directly down to earth, striking about a mile apart in the depths of the Grand Canyon.

The remains of 31 persons of the ill-fated DC7 were identified and 25 shipped back to their homes with the remaining six being cremated.

No further identification is possible necessitating a mass burial for 27 others at the government cemetery at Grand Canyon.


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