5/31/2023 0 Comments Mailplane vsThe beauty of the area, according to residents, has attracted summer tourists and Anchorage residents seeking second homes. These are the people who inspired the rest of us when we came here to build a sane, healthy life." Standing at the airstrip, near body bags containing the remains of the victims, she said, "These people lying around here were not your average people. Neighbors said he was quiet, seldom speaking to others when he came for mail each Tuesday.īonnie Morris, a seven-year resident of the area, summed up the survivors' feelings the day after the shootings when she said: "A nobody came in here and wiped out the pillars of one of the few self-sufficient communities in Alaska." His attorney, a public defender, will not comment on the case.Īn unemployed computer programmer who police said apparently has no criminal record, Hastings had lived for about a year in an old house near the abandoned Kennecott copper mine about four miles north of the McCarthy airstrip. Hastings is being held on $300,000 cash bond for a psychiatric examination. A plea of not guilty was entered by the court pending a grand jury review. Hastings, who traveled between McCarthy and Anchorage, 230 miles west of here, where his wife lives, has been charged in Anchorage with six counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of assault. Three of them, alerted to danger by others, the sound of shots and the sight of blood on the deep snow, were killed from ambush as they waited for help. Last Tuesday, a man with a rifle hunted down and shot more than half the residents of the McCarthy area as they waited for the mail plane. Louis Hastings, 39, a relative newcomer to the area, has been arrested and charged in the case. "You walk out for water, and you say, 'Hey, so and so's been by on the path.' "īut a week ago the pilgrimage was turned into two hours of terror as six people were killed and two wounded in a series of seemingly inexplicable shootings. "Around here, there are so few of us that we know each other by our boot tracks," McCarthy resident Nancy Gibert said. A subsequent addition of five feet to the wingspan resulted in the final version, the M-4, which realized considerable gain in payload at a negligible loss in performance.Each Tuesday about two dozen people spending the winter in and around this remote eastern Alaska community, a virtual ghost town since the Depression, come together at the airstrip near the Kennicott Glacier to meet the mail plane. Relatively minor changes in cockpit layout, engine accessories, and airframe construction led to the M-3 mailplane, which differed little in physical appearance from the M-2 version. Government and airline experiences with the Douglas mailplanes and the 0-2 led to modifications of the basic design. Its load-carrying capability, remarkable stability, and rugged construction contributed to a perfect safety record and profitable operation. The M-2 performed remarkably well during the early years on the CAM-4 route. For service over this route, a distance of about 660 miles, Western selected the Douglas M-2 aircraft, a mailplane version of the 0-2 observation plane produced by the Douglas Company to replace the U.S. On April 17, 1926, Western Air Service, Inc., commenced operation on Contract Air Mail Route 4 (CAM-4) between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. This airplane can currently be seen at the Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center. National Air Transport modified all of its M-3s into the M-4 configuration and eventually had 24 Douglas mailplanes on its roster, to become the largest operator of this type in commercial service.ĭouglas M-2 airmail plane and mannequins as displayed at the National Air and Space Museum. While Western eventually added two M-4s to its fleet of six M-2s, the M-4 saw more extensive service with National Air Transport (later United Air Lines) from 1927 to 1930 on the Chicago-New York route. Passenger service took a few more years to catch on. As with other contract carriers in the 1920s and 1930s, Ford's airmail contract paid enabled the company to grow and expand. Made of a new material, duralumin, the Trimotor was one of the first all metal airplanes.ĭesigned to carry passengers as well as mail, the Trimotor could carry 12 passengers along with a cargo of mail. In 1927, his company produced the Ford Trimotor aircraft. At first, Ford used airplanes his company had been using to transport automobile parts between assembly plants. In 1925, automobile giant Henry Ford won a contract to fly mail between Chicago and Detroit and Cleveland. Ford Trimotor being loaded with mail bags.
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