TWA Flight 3 was a twin-engine Douglas DC-3-382 propliner, registration NC1946, operated by Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA) as a scheduled domestic passenger flight from New York, New York, to Burbank, California, in the United States, via several stopovers including Las Vegas, Nevada. On January 16, 1942, at 19:20 PST, fifteen minutes after takeoff from Las Vegas Airport bound for Burbank, the aircraft was destroyed when it crashed into a sheer cliff on Potosi Mountain, 32 miles (51 km) southwest of the airport, at an elevation of 7,770 ft (2,370 m) above sea level. All 22 people on board, including movie star Carole Lombard, her mother, and three crew members, died in the crash. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) investigated the accident and determined that the cause was a navigation error by the captain.
A TWA DC-3 propliner being serviced for a flight
Carole Lombard
Flight plan form of Flight 3 showing magnetic course from Las Vegas airport (LQ) of 218° at 8,000 ft (2,400 m), which leads to high terrain. The captain's signature at the bottom is missing.
Unrecovered Wright Cyclone radial engine at the TWA Flight 3 crash site (October 2007)
Carole Lombard was an American actress. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard 23rd on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Lombard in 1940
Lombard, aged 12, with Monte Blue in her film debut, A Perfect Crime (1921)
Lombard in the comedy short Run, Girl, Run (1928), from her time as a "Mack Sennett girl"
Lombard (left) with Josephine Dunn in Safety in Numbers (1930)