FLASH: Plane piloted by Howard Hughes crashes in Beverly Hills
As depicted in ‘The Aviator’ (2004)
The Los Angeles Times (July 8, 1946)
Howard Hughes near death after plane hits four houses
Test flight ended by crash, fire
Howard Hughes, millionaire airplane manufacturer, oilman, motion-picture producer and one of the most famous civilian pilots aviation has ever known, was injured critically yesterday when he crashed in Beverly Hills while flying his experimental Army photographic plane on its maiden flight.
Hughes, doing his own test-hopping, appeared to have tried to reach the Los Angeles Country Club golf course on which he apparently intended to crash-land the twin-engine airplane.
Believed flying low
According to actor Dennis O’Keefe, who witnessed the entire episode from his home at 802 N. Linden Drive, the plane appeared to have been flying at an extremely low altitude, judging from the sound of the approaching engines.
Hughes fell about 300 feet short of the golf course, however, in his treetop-clipping attempt. The gigantic photographic plane, both its powerful engines whining, tore more than half the roof from a two-story dwelling at 803 N. Linden Drive, occupied by Dr. Jules Zimmerman, a dentist.
Simultaneously, the plane’s right wing sliced through the upstairs bedroom of the home next door to Zimmerman’s at 805 N. Linden Drive, narrowly missing the occupants, Jerry De Kamp and his wife Elizabeth, who were in the room at the time.
Bursts into flames
Caroming off the garage in the rear of the De Kamp residence the XF-11 continued its swath of devastation, slicing through a line of poplar trees bounding the rea of 808 Whittier Drive, the home of Lt. Col. Charles A. Meyer, interpreter at the war crimes trials in Europe, and burst into flames as it crashed into the Meyer home.
One of the plane’s tremendous radial engines, torn from its mounts by the impact, hurtled more than 60 feet through the air, passing through the Meyer home, tearing a gash through the corner of a home at 810 Whittier Drive, owned by Gosta B. Guston, retired Swedish industrialist, and finally came to rest on the Guston lawn.
Hughes was saved from death as the plane exploded into flames by Marine Sgt. William Lloyd Durkin, stationed at the El Toro Marine Base, and Capt. James Guston, 22, son of the industrialist and recently released from the Army.
Sleeper in narrow escape
Mrs. Katherine Guston, wife of the industrialist, narrowly escaped injury and possible death as she lay sleeping in a bedroom just above the dining room where the plane’s engine sliced through in its flight. Her pet Pomeranian, Tido, was injured by flying glass and splinters.
Firemen summoned to the scene by O’Keefe encountered additional hazards from explosions emanating from the plane itself and broken gas mains leading into the Meyer house. One gas main, which became “bottled up” and exploded, sent a tower of flame shooting more than 80 feet into the darkening sky.
The firemen, who battled the blaze for more than three hours, were able to save only a small portion of the Meyer home, and declared the house to be “almost totally destroyed.” Property damage to the residences was unofficially estimated at more than $100,000.
Loses consciousness
Hughes was taken to the Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital where, according to Beverly Hills Det. John Hankins, Dr. J. C. Murray, in charge, reported the millionaire sportsman suffered a broken left leg, a deep gash over the left ear, third-degree burns on the left hand, a possible broken back and a possible skull fracture. Dr. Murray gave him a “50-50” chance to live.
Hughes was reported to have been conscious upon arrival at the hospital and to have almost laconically remarked, “I’m Howard Hughes.” Later, however, he lost consciousness and was placed under an oxygen tent. A half hour later he was removed to Good Samaritan Hospital for surgery under the care of Drs. Lawrence Chaffin and Verne Mason.
First x-rays showed that in addition to the injuries and possible fractures listed above, Hughes has one lung punctured in six places, eight broken ribs and a broken nose. The physicians reported that, despite the seriousness of his injuries, the famous flyer was “resting and talking rationally.”
At 5:25 p.m. yesterday the XF-11, Hughes alone at the controls, lifted easily under the pull of its two eight-bladed counter-rotating propellers. A handful of company officials and newspapermen watched the latest Hughes creation. One hour and 18 minutes later the ship was a mass of junk which attracted an estimated throng of 8,000 persons to watch its cremation.
Engineer leaves plane
Perhaps the luckiest man connected with the maiden flight was an unidentified Hughes engineer who sat at the controls with Hughes while the former ran his ship through three taxi runs and seven practice “hops” during which the revolutionary plane was lifted from the Hughes airstrip near Culver City for a few seconds each time.
Before the actual takeoff Hughes stopped the plane, opened the belly-door and let his associate out of the navigator’s seat to the ground.
Waving to the crowd and to his former companion, the flier, who has made more aviation records than you can count on the fingers of both hands, took off casually on what may well be the last Howard Hughes flight on this earth.
Holds air records
It was nothing new for Hughes to handle the maiden flight of one of his own creations. The 40-year-old, slightly deaf, handsome bachelor, whose fortune has been estimated at $125,000,000, had done it many times before. Back in 1935 he constructed his own plane and with it established a transcontinental speed record of nine hours and 41 minutes.
Hughes crashed twice before. In January 1928, when he was 22, a World War I Sopwith he was piloting crashed from 200 feet in Inglewood. He received minor hurts. In May, three years ago, his twin-engined flying boat dived into Lake Mead and two men were killed and Hughes and two others were hurt. Hughes’ injuries again were not serious.
Great things had been expected from this hip, which Hughes built in cooperation with the U.S. Air Forces Materiel Command. Power from the two 3,000 hp radial engines was expected to take it to speeds in excess of 400 mph at a service celling of 40,000 feet. Nobody, except Hughes, knows what it will do now. It is problematical if Hughes will ever be able to tell. The plane had a wingspread of 101 feet 4 inches and an overall length of 65 feet 5 inches.
Weird noise heard
In addition to O’Keefe, the crash was witnessed by J. A. Harrison, 1331 Longwood Ave., a telephone company employee, who said he was the telephone building at 400 Foothill Rd., Beverly Hills, when he heard the plane go by.
“It sounded very close and the noise was weird,” he said. “So I rushed to the window and saw what appeared to be a mammoth P-38 moving very slowly in a northwest direction. Then it crashed.”
The weird sound probably came from the new-type propellers, but O’Keefe said the sound indicated to him that Hughes had “wound up” his engines to the maximum in an effort to climb.
Took to flying early
Hughes first took up aviation in his early 20’s and soon thereafter was in the thick of it, making a name for himself with speed flights across country and, in 1938, with his around-the-world flight in three days, 10 hours and 17 minutes.
As early as 1935 he had set speed records of more than 352 mph. In January 1938, he established his first transcontinental record of 9 hours 27 minutes 10 seconds. He started building his own planes in the early 1930s, culminating with the construction of the government-financed $20,000,000 boat, the Hercules, now being assembled at Long Beach Harbor.