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     Early on the morning of Thursday, 10^th December 1964, I had my last conversation 

with my father.  Dad was drilling a well at Rosecrans Ave., in the bowels of L.A., and, 

once again, couldn’t make the payrolls that week.  A few days before he had 

arranged for me to fly up to the Sonoma County Airport, in the wine country, and 

pick up two doctors who were good investor prospects.  Unfortunately, in the 

interim, I had come down with the worst case of flu I’d ever experienced – running a 

temperature of 103˚ - and was physically unable to take the trip.  It totally pissed me

off as I really wanted the flying hours.

     I remember how sleepy his voice sounded over the phone at 6:A.M. – telling me to 

go back to bed and get well.  If I’d only known what was about to happen - there was 

so much more I would have told him.

     Let that be a lesson to you, dear reader.  People you genuinely care for, can be 

ejected from your life at the drop of a hat.  Always choose your words carefully to 

loved ones...when saying goodbye.

     It was Judith, my dad’s girlfriend, who was the first to realize something was 

amiss.  I crawled out of my sickbed – at nearly 8:P.M. that same night - to take a call 

from her in Palm Springs.  She was all in tears; Pop hadn’t arrived at Sonoma to pick 

up the doctors.  By this time, he was long overdue on his original VFR flight plan, 

and ATC, along with Civil Air Patrol, had already begun search operations.

      Over fifty planes were employed in the search, but a heavy winter storm, rolling in

from the Pacific, hampered search efforts for two days. 

          Winter storm from the Pacific hammering California.

     At length on Saturday, December 12th, one of the search planes located

my father’s crash site from the air, and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s sent in a search 

team on foot.

     I arrived at the site on the 13^th, to confirm it was indeed my dad’s plane, and to 

retrieve his briefcase containing important documents for his business partners.  

From what I observed - and upon interviewing the sheriff’s deputies - I was able to 

piece together what had caused the crash.

     Father only had a Private Pilot’s License, with Single and Multi-Engine Ratings.  

He hadn’t bothered to get an Instrument Rating.  Therefore he wasn’t qualified to

operate an aircraft, under instrument conditions, in that state-wide storm.

     Staying VFR (Visual Flight Rules), while playing tag with the soup, he managed to 

get as far as the Nut Tree Airport at Vacaville, California, - where he diverted.

     Nut Tree Airport at Vacaville.

     There he took on fuel, checked the weather by phone (which had gone from 

terrible to worse) but didn’t re-file another VFR Flight Plan. To reach the Sonoma 

County Airport, at Santa Rosa, required flying over a low range of mountains, called 

the Mayacama. 

           Dad’s proposed route of flight and crash site.

     Slowing the Cessna 310 to roughly 160 mph, Pop attempted to stay visual.  While 

picking his way through the mountain range, flying under a solid overcast spewing 

mist and rain, which greatly restricted his forward visibility.

     A gentleman operating a Caterpillar tractor – clearing a firebreak on a ridgeline for 

the forestry department – was stunned by the sudden appearance of a sleek, blue 

and white twin-Cessna roaring out of the rain and mist right over the top of him!  

Shortly after it vanished in the grey muck, the Caterpillar operator heard this 

aircraft impact the next ridgeline west of his position.

     Apparently the crest of this ridgeline was higher, and lay concealed inside the 

overcast. It was also on the southeast slope of Bald Mountain, roughly 600 feet 

below it’s summit of 2,729 feet above sea level. 

     The first indication my father had of this, was when his light twin struck the tops 

of trees, which cleanly sliced off the wing-tip tanks on the ends of both wings. These 

tanks - resembling blue bombs - were the only fuel tanks on this model of Cessna 

310. 

          Dad’s 1956 Cessna 310:  Note the wing-tip tanks.

     

     Dad pulled the nose up as he shoved both throttles forward; demanding 

maximum  power from the engines.  All he got was a single burst of thrust – the 

engines burning up the remaining fuel in the lines – then both engines quit from fuel 

starvation.  Since by this juncture, both fuel tanks had tumbled off into the forest. 

     The prop-wash creating lift over the tops of the wings stopped - leaving the wings’ 

angle of attack far too great for the airspeed – abruptly resulting in all lift being lost.  

Both wings completely stalled out.  The light-twin then slammed into the forest, with 

such force that both engines were ripped from their mounts, while young tree trunks 

skewered both wings.  My father – still strapped to his chair – was catapulted out of 

the cockpit into a stand of gray pines that dissected his body.

     When I arrived at the crash site, I detected pieces of clothing, flesh, muscle and fat 

hanging in strips from these same trees.  The coroner had already collected as many 

of Dad’s body parts, as he could reasonably locate. Identification had to be made by 

his billfold and the aircraft’s registration.  I wasn’t required to view his remains, as 

the state of his body made recognition impossible.

     I asked the coroner’s people if they had found a large, heavy gold ring with a gold, 

diamond-encrusted oil derrick. Mom had it specially made twelve years previously 

for Pop’s birthday; he always wore it.  Their response was negative. 

           Under all that over growth scattered remnants of my father’s plane can still be found.

      The tail section, one wing and engine have been looted.

    

 

     Less than a mile from the crash site lives a Senior State Archaeologist who guards the site.

     That’s when I began to fantasize - as I rummaged in the destroyed cockpit and 

baggage compartment for his briefcase – perhaps Dad had hired someone else to 

pick up the doctors.  Maybe he had even skipped out of the country to Mexico.  He 

was part owner of the Santa Maria Sky Ranch at Bahia de San Quintin, 160 miles 

south of Tijuana, on the west coast of Baja.  Occasionally we flew prospective 

investors down there.

        The Santa Maria Sky Ranch, Bahia de San Quintin, Baja California, Mexico.

     

     This “Bahia” was lousy with lobsters, dear reader.  You haven’t lived until you 

sink your teeth into a lobster taco, and wash it down with a Carta Blanca.

     Amazingly, my desperate fantasies were brutally crushed.  The sheriff’s deputies 

and coroner’s people sifted through that stand of trees, and actually uncovered my 

father’s ring!

      How in hell did they find my dad’s ring on that mountainside? 

     Afterwards, standing on the side of the mountain in the damp and cold – holding 

Dad’s ring – the reality of the situation consequently slammed home.  My father was

actually dead.         

     Pop had a saying, dear reader, which I often heard: “When in doubt...play it by 

ear.”  That’s what caused this crash.  There are bold pilots...and old pilots.  Old pilots 

don’t “play it by ear.”  Maybe you can bullshit your way through life, but you can’t 

bullshit your way through aviation; sooner or later the bill comes due and

aviation will bite you in the ass.  Dad made this discovery the hard way...as did John 

F. Kennedy, Jr.  My only consolation: Father didn’t suffer – he left this life in a flash.  

He was only forty-eight.

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