Missouri State Death Records online

Apologies for those of you who may have already done a web search over the years however the Missouri Digital Heritage collection, via the John R. Ashcroft website (current Secretary of State for Missouri) , has the online death certificates for 44 of the 45 passengers and crew board Flight 11.

They are PDF files and some information has deliberately been blanked out due to its content. However for anyone interested follow the link

https://s1.sos.mo.gov/Records/Archives/ArchivesMvc/

Once there simply enter the search criteria either by month/year or name etc.

Memorial wreath to mark 54th anniversary in Unionville

Sandy and Duane Crawford were kind enough to arrange a wreath to be displayed at the memorial stone site in the centre of Unionville to mark the 54th anniversary on May 22. Such a kind and beautiful gesture to honour those passengers and crew whose lives were horribly cut short on May 22 1962.

Former Continental Staff circa 1950s/1960s

It has come to my attention over the years of my experiences with Flight 11 that a number of former Continental employees have reunited via this blog and the events surrounding Flight 11 memorial services over the last few years.

Not only this but it has also brought about a number of ex crew (who in some cases were colleagues of the victims of Flight 11) to enquire as to where they may be able to go to post old stories and memories in an open-style "forum."

I have thought about the feasibility of starting an ancillary blog for these former employees of the day to come forward and share any stories they have, Flight 11 related or not.

If anyone is interested in this or knows anyone with a similar site do let me know as it is something I may start merely as an open-post "wall" if you will for people to put their memories out there.

In keeping with the Flight 11 theme however I would keep it strictly from that era... any thoughts or directions from anyone would be greatly appreciated in this matter. I know many of you have often asked "I wonder whatever happened to so and so...". I'm sure we could unravel a few more mysteries of the day

:-)

Captain Richard Grigsby, Continental Airlines

Following on from the aftermath of Flight 11, a friend and colleague of Captain Fred Gray had written a poem called "Top O Climb". The poem was published in The Denver Post in 62 by Captain Richard Grigsby. Grigsby had a distinguished and long flying career. I had made efforts to contact him to see if he was still alive to perhaps capture his memories of Captain Gray and the other crew aboard Flight 11. Sadly I found Mr Grigsby's obituary dated February 5th 2014. I hope he was aware of our efforts re Flight 11. His lovely poem dedicated to Fred Gray is as follows: (unfortunately we haven't ever confirmed the original date of publication but it was some time shortly after May 22nd, 1962)

TOP O' CLIMB

The big jet starts to roll reluctantly,

For flight ahead is long and there is fuel

Which must be burdened, else

It cannot be.

That cunning will be victor in the duel

With Time and Space.

What power it takes to lift away from ground-

To blast such heavy burden into flight!

A thousand banshees couldn't wail the sound,

A thousand winged horses match the might of this great bird!

Her climb is rapid, now that speed is gained.

She flashes upward, forward, winning free;

But still the awful power must be sustained

To lift her into Nature's rarest sea

Far, in the sky.

At top o'climb, the battle all but won,

She settles down, her only labor just

To cruise a close companion to the sun.

Before she drops her power to "idle thrust",

Descends the other side.

RICHARD S. GRIGSBY

Capt. Continental Air Lines

A lunch in Los Angeles

After stepping off Qantas QF15 from Brisbane to Los Angeles and waiting an excruciating 1 hr 40 minutes to clear customs I found myself whisked through L.A. to the home of Tim Duley. After a quick spruce up I was on the road again heading for Glendale for a lunch with a most important lady; Kathryn Hamilton. Kathryn's Dad Maurice Hamilton was on Flight 11 on a last-minute business trip. We met at a beautiful cafe just by the business district of Glendale in the California sun. We discussed what Kathryn remembered about the night Flight 11 vanished from the radar. She had a huge scrapbook full of newspaper clippings and articles about Flight 11 from the time of the crash up to the renewed interest in the past few years.

I had met her sister Maureen and her brother Tom last year at the 50th anniversary memorial. It was so good to meet another family member. Despite lack of sleep and a hint of jet lag I was amazed to meet this wonderful and amazing person and for her to reach out to a total stranger who had flown half way across the world for "lunch" in Glendale that day.

Her and Tim (his father Tom closed the door on Flight 11 that ill-fated evening) and I chatted for what seemed hours. It really was such a pleasant thing.

It was especially interesting to Kathryn to learn that Tim's father had been the last person to see anyone from Flight 11 alive. Of course around 50 minutes later the catastrophic results of a deluded man would spoil what had been a routine flight.

Even more interesting to Kathryn was learning about Sandy Glau, former Continental hostess who had spoken to the flight crew earlier that evening as they went to board the accident aircraft.

Below is a picture of Tim, Kathryn and myself in Glendale, CA. Once again it's such a rewarding thing for me to continue to connect the families of those connected with Flight 11.

The legendary Sandy Glau with the blog author

Here is a snapshot of myself with Sandy Glau, former CAL hostess who flew N70775 the day of the incident and also said hello to the crew prior to 11s departure on the evening of 22/05/62.

Sandy Glau

I had the pleasure of meeting former Continental hostess Sandy Glau last Sunday in Denver (April 7). Her and the Allen family and Gray family had dinner in Denver. Sandy saw the flight crew of Flight 11 before they took off for that ill fated flight. Sandy was such a pleasure to speak to. Photos to follow when I return from the USA. Sandy also had a fascinating insight into air travel in the early 1960s and the impact Flight 11 had on them all following the crash. She spoke of the crew as being some of the best at Continental; a wonderful sense of humour and professionalism all the way. Thank you Sandy!!!

Drop down oxygen masks

A question which has left me wondering for years now (literally a decade) has finally been answered by Sandy Glau, a former Continental Airlines Boeing 707 stewardess.

The 707-120s that Continental were flying originally (1959-era machines) did indeed come with the typical drop-down style oxygen mask system that you would find today on any modern airliner.

The usual scenario is that in an explosive decompression the duty of cabin crew was to ensure people had their masks on while keeping passengers calm at the same time- this would be no easy task in a jet descending rapidly with flight attendants probably finding it tricky to move with the rapid descent and associated g-forces of that descent. Nonetheless this was the procedure.

It would also be usual for cabin crew to receive further instruction from the flight deck at some point when the aircraft was at a safe altitutde for passengers to breathe without the use of masks.

Flight 11 of course lost its tail at some point during the descent and it is appreciable that cabin-cockpit communications would have been impossible.

N70773 Sister Ship to N70775 (Flight 11) crash at Kansas City in 1965

On July 1st 1965 N70773, the sister aircraft to N70775 that operated Flight 11 was lost when it landed at Kansas City Downtown Airport in heavy rain and hydroplaned. It hit a blast mound at the end of the runway and ended up on airport perimeter road broken into three major pieces. Of the 66 passengers and crew aboard nobody died. However the Flight number was Flight 12 and it was operating the reverse of Flight 11 (i.e. Los Angeles-Kansas City-Chicago). This particular aircraft was delivered just before N70775 and was part of an original "batch" of Boeing 707-124s to end up at Continental.

N70775 Hijacking in El Paso, Texas in 1961

As many people know N70775 that operated Flight 11 had been hijacked the year prior and was badly damaged by FBI bullets in an attempt to stop it from being flown to Cuba as per the hijackers demands. Despite it ending well many of the hijacked passengers and crew were shaken up and not surprisingly there was a hefty bill for repair of the Boeing 707. It subsequently returned to service after Boeing and Continental engineers performed repair work. A number of bullets had pierced the fuselage and cabin floor and broken a window.

Here is a front page article sent to me by Jayne Specht from Oskaloosa. She is a wealth of knowledge on aviation matters during the 1960s as she worked in the industry. She also has many newspaper clippings and articles from the decade and she sent me this one. I have had to scan it through in two parts but it briefly outlines the hijacking (not the complete article I'm afraid) and also shows a picture of N70775 pre its tragic destruction less than  year later. Apologies for the poor quality in advance.

Duane Crawford's notes on Tom Duley, former Continental Airlines gate agent

This echoes a previous post on this blog which I shared with you all from Tim Duley. If you can recollect it was his father who was the gate agent at Chicago O'Hare Airport the night Flight 11 departed. He was the last person to see any of the passengers or crew alive on the ground (with the exception of those who saw Takehiko Nakano who of course died shortly after being pulled from the wreckage). This is another rendition of Tom Duley's account of that evening (Tom was Tim's father, Tim contacted me). It is taken from PC Happenings which is "Putnam County Happening" where Mr Duane Crawford resides and writes columns for the Unionville Republican Newspaper there in Missouri. It is as follows:

"In my last PC Happenings, I mentioned Tim Duley as being a pilot for Jet Blue Airways and coming to the Remembrance Service from California to represent his late father.  About a year ago he emailed this account of his father, Tom Duley, who was an employee for Continental Airlines for 23 years.  He wrote the following on June 13, 2011 to Tom Bolster, who was also on gate duty that night.  “Tom Duley worked the ticket counter and gates (mostly gates).  He mentioned Continental Flight 11 to me numerous times.  Here are the details.  A man (Thomas Doty) bought an insurance policy for a huge amount from one of the insurance counters in the terminal at O’Hara Airport in Chicago.

“In those days, there was no airport security.  It was like a bus terminal.  Passengers just walked to and through the gates and boarded their flights.  He told me that Flight 11’s tragedy was the reason for the increased airport security.

“He related that the insurance counters then would call the gate to tell him or other gate employees the name of the passenger buying a large insurance policy. He said that with that information they would not have allowed the passenger to board.  For some reason, the insurance counter did not call the gate that night.  The passengers (Thomas Doty and Geneva Fraley) arrived at the gate after they had already closed the flight and pulled the air-stairs (no jet-bridges in those days) away from the plane.

“But in those days, customer service was important, and though the aircraft doors were already closed, my father was required to move the air-stairs back to Flight 11 to let Doty and his friend aboard.

“Dad mentioned Captain Fred Gray many times, and he told me that he was a great pilot.  Also, he stated that after Doty was aboard the forward flight attendant gave him a cup of coffee and said, ‘Have a good night Tom!’  The door was then closed.  He was the last person to speak personally to a member of the crew.

“Dad said that the movie “Airport” was based on Flight 11; however, the real Flight 11 was a terrible tragedy.  This flight and Dad’s role weighed heavily on him for the rest of his life. 

“My father married my mother, a Continental flight attendant and former registered nurse (RN).  In those days flight attendants were forced to quit if they married or became pregnant.  She went back to nursing.

“Dad continued his career with continental and eventually became a ticket counter supervisor in Denver, Colorado.  He passed away in 2003.

“I wish my father was still alive to see the great work Unionville citizens have done to remember the crew and passengers of Flight 11.”

Ralph Boester also worked the gate at O’Hare Airport on May 22, 1962.  An employee with Hewlett-Packard, he has verified what Tom Duley had said.  He also added other interesting information, which I’ll describe at another time." 

My experience at the crash site

It has taken me some time to muster up the emotional stamina to write about my visit to the crash site. The first one was May 25th (Friday) with the Allen and Kuhn families. The second was the Saturday following the memorial service with a large number of the families including the Gray family (Captain of Flight 11).

The first Friday I was a bit jetlagged and bewildered to be in the USA; the heat was intense as I had just left winter in New Zealand. After meeting the Allen's and Kuhn's at Duane Crawford's beautiful home in Unionville I climbed into Ron Cook's truck (he is the gentleman who found the wreckage of N70775 the morning following its untimely plunge to earth) and we headed out along the UU highway before veering left onto a much smaller road before coming upon a farmhouse with children playing in the front yard. Opposite the house was a chained up rust-coloured gate; an ancient weather-worn barn stood to the right at a little distance off.

We slowly drove down a track into the field that seemed to go for miles. And then we came to a line of trees (after being jolted to the ceiling by the ruts in the road). That is the "infamous" tree line that can be seen in some of the pictures to do with Flight 11. Just to the north of that treeline was where Flight 11and its passengers and crew  had come to their final resting place.

I hopped out of the tuck into long grass. I was told to look out for ticks as they bite and burrow into your skin and cause infection and death eventually if not treated quickly. My mouth must have dropped open a fair bit as we don't have anything poisonous in New Zealand really.

And then Ronnie Cook with tears in his eyes explained to the Kuhn and Allen family and myself (with Duane Crawford present) what he had seen in the early hours of May 23rd 1962 as he came upon the huge badly broken (yet still integrally intact) fuselage of the Boeing 707 that had had 45 souls aboard.

I stood there with a completely unusual feeling of peace, of serenity. The field where Flight 11 crashed was as calm and peaceful as a mill pond. Only a few birds sung here and there and a warm breeze rustled the long grass.

We all walked down to near a bright green bush where the cockpit section of Flight 11 has lain 50 years ago. I stood there going through a roller coaster of emotions. I felt a bit guilty; I hadn't lost anyone on this flight but of course I am as connected to it as anyone else really.

The field itself is long grass and the crash site has been overgrown by blackberry bushes and a single bright green bush. The grass is coarse and full of ticks and bugs.  At the actual spot I could just imagine in my head what it must have been like for Ron Cook to come across that 707; for the investigators in their 1960s suits and thick-rimmed glasses; for the FBI men with their slick suits and Ford Thunderbird keys clenched in their sweaty palms; wondering what the heck had happened here; for the many young men who carried bodies from what had been the pristine cocktail-evening style cabin of N70775; the grim and curious faces of locals perched on the bank opposite the plane; the press who had gathered like storm clouds; the police and local law enforcement who had a gargantuan task on their hands.

Finally I was at the place where 50 years ago 45 people lost their lives. I was as close as I will ever get in my life to the spot that has so fascinated me; the flight that caught my attention and lead to this blog, the flight that bugged me from the early 2000s till now. In my own life I felt no peace till this moment standing on the crash site. It was as if I had completed a journey, not so much for myself, but for those who had lost their lives in what was America's first-ever sabotage of a jetliner on a commercial flight; the time when America lost her aviation innocence during the golden years of the jet age.

Twists and turns of flight 11

Over the years I've had this blog I have come across some unusual details regarding flight 11. Some of you may know them,others not.
1) a baby and its mother got off the plane as the baby needed changing.
2) the stairs were placed back into the plane to allow two late passengers to board; Doty and Fraley.
3) Stella Berry wasn't meant to be crew on the flight. She replaced a sick friend of hers who had to go off duty.
4) the 707, N70775,  had been hijacked previously and shot at. Damage was patched over I believe from a previous accident report detailing the hijacking at El Paso,TX.
5) second officer Roger Allen's mother was born in the area the plane came down in.
6) a gentleman just missed the flight.
7) flight 11 just missed ploughing into two houses.
8) one of the deceased passengers' sister used to play cards with Mrs Fraley, who was travelling with Doty. 
9) there had been thunderstorms in the area which led people to initially suspect that flight 11 may have flown into a tornado.
10) the crew were found with oxygen masks on, emergency checklists out, landing gear down and locked indicating an emergency descent was initiated. The crew would not have had time to issue a mayday I believe as they had their hands full from the moment of the explosion.  Some of the flight attendants were also found strapped in which would indicate they were well aware of the initial explosion and emergency descent and had instinctively gone to their crew seats.
11) The FBI investigator was W. Mark Felt, who later went on to become the whistleblower for the infamous Watergate scandal involving President Richard F. Nixon. 

Speech from 50th anniversary memorial service

Here is the speech I delivered at the 50th anniversary memorial service in Unionville, MO on 26th May

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen

I stand here before you today in somewhat of an unprepared state. Certainly not for lack of words or of being in the United States of America, but for actually finding myself here, in Unionville, just a tad over 50 years since the crash of a Boeing 707 operating as Continental Airlines Flight 11 from Chicago to Kansas City.

I am unprepared also because I had no idea that I should make such a huge impact upon something that was so far removed from my part of the world and from what I had expected.

I am, to put it bluntly, an aviation enthusiast; someone who loves the smell, sight and sound of aircraft. During the late 1990s I had been given a one-hundred dollar coffee-table book about flying in the 1960s; the golden age of the jet-era. In it were dozens of photos of the Boeing 707 jetliner. It was and remains my favourite aircraft type.

I wanted to know more about Continental’s “Golden Jets”; the 707s that flew domestic routes for what was then one of America’s most prestigious and well-managed airlines. It was while surfing the internet for a school project in the early 2000s that I came across a typewritten Civil Aeronautics Board report on the sabotage of Flight 11.

I pondered over this report for the next few years or so, mystified by a lack of anything else about it. Then my research led to a startling fact; this was the first ever sabotage of a jetliner on American soil. I became further intrigued by the sketchiness of the details and the absolute lack of information. I was curious about Unionville and what had happened to it since it made headlines in 1962, twenty-four years before I was born.

There appeared, for one reason or another, to be more to find out about Flight 11 and a 60s-era typewritten accident report wasn’t enough. It soon became clear that there was no memorial to the crash despite its overwhelming historical significance and the tragic details of how it happened.

Now virtually every plane crash in the States has some kind of memorial; right back to the early days of aviation. I wondered what had happened to the families of the passengers and crew who were aboard that night; where were they now and why had this crash been so utterly forgotten. It seemed like a bad dream to me that nothing had been done to represent Flight 11’s passing over rural Missouri 50 years ago as it came to an untimely, unnecessary and callously planned end near where we stand today.

In 2007, hoping to find out further information as to what had happened I put up a blog about the crash. I had not even expected a single post or reply, thinking perhaps that most folks had forgotten. When emails and posts on the blog started coming in I was initially stunned. Then in 2008 when Duane Crawford contacted me about the push for a memorial I started to realize I had come across something much more poignant than a mere plane crash.

What had been initially an historical inquiry became a close connection with Flight 11 as I continued to hear from countless people connected with the flight in some way; people who had lost someone who was aboard, those who had seen the destruction first-hand and those who were here to offer support in the aftermath of May 22^nd.

The push for a memorial and recognition of what happened here 50 years ago finally came to fruition in 2010. It has brought together a community of townsfolk and a wider community of those who have had to live with the grief of losing their loved ones aboard Flight 11. For those who worked at Continental at the time it weighed heavily on their minds too.  

When Captain Gray and his crew and the passengers in their care boarded Flight 11 on what I’m sure must have seemed an ordinary May night, nobody could have foreseen the terror and catastrophe that was to occur aboard a short time later. In fact 45 minutes after takeoff from Chicago, a lifetime of total disbelief for the people of this community and a lifetime of loss and grief for the relatives of those aboard, had begun.

Those expecting to see their loved ones at the airport or at home later that night never had that right; it was taken from then by the act of one man.   

Unionville never asked for what happened here 50 years ago but rose to the occasion and has chosen to honour that with this memorial and the efforts put into this anniversary.  

I had never dreamed that my blog would assist in seeing a memorial come about and in re-igniting awareness of Flight 11.

This is all about the families now though folks; not the blog or the historical importance; families come first and need to be recognized for what they have endured since their lives were irreversibly interrupted at approximately 9:17pm on May 22^nd, 1962.  

I only hope that I have given the families some sort of a voice to say that you haven’t been forgotten, that people still care, that what happened here will never be forgotten.  

A flight attendant who was on N70775 just before it took off as Flight 11

A former Continental Airlines stewardess who's husband was Captain Gray's cousin has emailed me with some interesting news. She worked on the ill fated aircraft N70775 on the afternoon of the crash. After flying in from Los Angeles on it her crew swapped over to another aircraft and Captain Gray and his crew took command of N70775. The lady who has emailed me, Sandy Glau,  said hello to Captain Gray before she boarded the other aircraft.
Upon returning to LAX that evening she learned that flight 11 was missing.
A touching story. Thank you to Sandy for sharing that with me.

Crew and Passengers of Flight 11

Flight Crew: 

Captain Fred R. Gray
First Officer Edward J. Sullivan
Second Officer Roger D. Allen

Cabin Crew:

David E. M. Olssen (director of passenger services - this role was like a chief purser and unique to Continental)
Marilyn I. Bloomquist
Mary R. McGrath
Martha J. Rush
Stella Ann Berry

Passengers:

Jack D. Alexander
Kenneth H. Berger
Marcus C Brand
David D. Bowman
Beauford M. Carter
William C. Chapin
James A. Clarity, Jr.
Tommy J. Cox
Geneva O. Fraley
Clyde D. Fritz
Robert C. Gach
Philip E. Gilbertson, Sr.
Sidney H. Goldberg
Frank J. Grene, Jr.
Maurice E. Hamilton
John E. Hamm
Henry E. Hanna
Fred P. Herman
Philip I. Hoare
Marvin Dale Horn
Edward A. Kuhn
Robert L. Miller
Virgil W. Mourning
Takehiko Nakano
Ross A. Reid
Andrew P. Roucka
Bruce Stewart
Robert G. Tabors
Rex O. Thomas
Benjamin F. Tuttle
Edward C. Waffle
Clifford L. Walton
James R. Webb
Roger Welch
Bobby J. Wilks
Russell W. Wolfe

The Aircraft:
N70775, Boeing 707-124 built in 1959 for Cubana Airlines but went to Continental Airlines instead.

The Flight:
"CO11"/"CAL11" Chicago-Kansas City-Los Angeles.

Ann Berry

A gentleman from California has come forward, via Duane Crawford, to inform us that his wife was meant to work on Flight 11 as a stewardess but her inbound flight was delayed due to a mechanical issue. Ann Berry stepped in as the "standby" crew member. The wife of the gentleman has long remembered and been affected by the death of Ann Berry (her best friend at the time) and the fate of CO11 that evening.

An extremely interesting story and one of those "what could have been/what if" scenarios.

50th Anniversary of Continental Airlines Flight 11 - Important Information

For interested readers of this website, my name is Duane Crawford from Unionville, Missouri, the place where Continental Airlines Flight 11 was sabotaged and destroyed on May 22, 1962.  All 37 passengers and 8 crew members were killed in the crash.

    At 11:00 a.m., on May 26, 2012, a 50th Anniversary Remembrance Service will be held in Unionville to honor the innocent victims of the terrible tragedy.  A good number of the families plan to attend, but the highlight of the event is Andrew Russell's presence here in Unionville.  He will be the main speaker.

   

    Andrew, a young New Zealand college student, inspired our local citizens to build and dedicate a beautiful Flight 11 Memorial in 2010.  His round trip fare and accommodations are being paid for by the generous donations of families and local citizens.

    Much has been written about Flight 11 and the families.  I can be contacted at crawford@nemr.net.  The service is open to the public.

  Duane Crawford

A fascinating story...

This was emailed to me by Tim Duley who's father worked at Continental the night that Flight 11 took off from Chicago. The contents of that email tell a remarkable story of that evening and of what is likely the last person to see anyone from CO11 alive. It is as follows...

My name is Tim Duley.  I just visited your blog for Continental Airlines Flight 11.  I am a pilot for jetBlue Airways.  My father, Tom Duley, worked the ticket counter and gates (mostly gates) for Continental Airlines for 23 years.  He had mentioned Continental Flight 11 to me numerous times.  My father was the gate agent working Continental Flight 11.  Here are the details he had told me - hopefully everything I write is accurate.  

A man (Thomas Doty) bought an insurance policy for a million dollars from one of the insurance counters in the terminal.  In those days there was no airport security.  It was like a bus terminal - just walk through to the gates and board your flight.  My father told me that this flight was instrumental in airport security checkpoints.  He also told me that normally the insurance counter would have called the gate to tell him that a passenger (naming the passenger) had just bought a large insurance policy.  My father stated that with that information they would not have allowed the passenger to board.  But for some reason, the insurance counter did not call the gate to report this individual that night.  The passenger (Thomas Doty) and his secretary(possibly girlfriend) arrived to the gate after they had already closed the flight and pulled the airstairs (no jetbridges in those days).  But in those days customer service was very important (I dont know if they tracked on time performace back then which may explain why they boarded him after the aircraft door was already closed).  So my dad had the airstairs pulled back up to the Boeing 707 (may have actually been a Boeing 720?) and Thomas Doty boarded.  My dad mentioned the Captain and told me he was a great pilot, very friendly, a nice gentleman, and my dad had great respect for him.  My dad also told me that the forward flight attendant gave my dad a cup of coffee and said "have a good night Tom!" just before he closed the forward door once again.  He was the last person on the ground to speak personally to the crew.  They later found her dead dangling in a tree after the crash.  My father told me that it was later discovered that the passenger he held the flight for named his wife in the insurance policy, that he had a bomb in his briefcase, and that he set it off in the aft lavatory.  He also told me that the original movie Airport was based on Continental Flight 11, however the outcome of CAL flt 11 was much more tragic.  I think that this flight weighed heavily on my dad for the rest of his life.  My father married my mother who was a Continental flight attendant and former Registered Nurse.  Back then my mother and all flight attendants were forced to quit if they became married or pregnant.  So my mother went back to nursing.  My fathers career took us to LAX where he became a DPS (Director of Passenger Service) agent, then to SAT (San Antonio) where he became a ticket counter supervisor, then to DEN where he worked as a gate agent until his career was ended by Frank Lorenzo.  My father passed away in October 2003.  

This is what I remember from what my father told me about Continental Flight 11.  I apologize if any part of it is inaccurate.  I wish my father was still alive to see the great work you have been doing for the memory of Continental Airlines Flight 11.  Please contact me if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.
Sincerely

Tim Duley       

Continental Air Lines Flight 11

Hi all.
Well never having blogged before I apologize in advance for any mistakes or waffling that you may find here.

Basically I'm a 23 year old in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm also an aviation enthusiast. I happened to come across the tragedy of Continental Air Lines Flight 11 one day when scanning the aviation safety network site. After checking out many of the facts of the crash I often wondered why there wasn't more about it. I am also shocked to find no memorial in the vicinity of the crash. It seems that so much time has moved on that there is nothing on the web from anyone who remembers the crash or from anyone who lost someone on the flight.

After all it was the very first sabotage of a commercial jet airliner in the world. The plane, a 1959 Boeing 707-124 (N70775) was carrying 45 passengers and crew (37 passengers and 8 crew). A scheduled flight, CO 11 left Chicago's O'Hare International Airport just after 8:30pm on the night of May 22nd 1962 bound for Los Angeles with an intermediate stop at Kansas City Downtown Airport.

A bomb, placed by Thomas G. Doty in the lavatory exploded at sometime between 9:17 and 9:22pm and the aircraft suffered a rapid decompression and descent. The pilots donned their masks and begun a controlled descent to safe altitude. The tail of the plane separated however, and the forward section and main fuselage went plummeting to the ground, tearing off the four powerful engines with the sheer force of the descent.

Wreckage rained down from south of Cincinnati to Unionville, Missouri where the major sections of the aircraft crashed. One passenger managed to survive that terrible night but died early the next morning from his injuries. He was 27 year old Takehiko Nakano, an engineer from Illinois.

HARDLY ANYTHING is available on the net regarding this crash and the families of the victims that were on-board. There is nothing on Thomas G. Doty either. He had a five-year old daughter and was married. That's that. It seems he had become depressed, taken out excessive life insurance then boarded the flight. The bomb detonated indicating that at some stage during the flight or perhaps even before take-off, Doty had visited the lavatory to place the bomb inside one of the wast-towel bins.

What I find amazing is that forty-five years after the crash and there appears to be no memorial in the area for it. Unionville, Missouri is isolated and sparsely populated. I often wonder if the aircraft had come down in Cincinnati would more have survived? Indeed the plane was not reached for hours after it crashed because of confusion as to where it's specific resting place was.

I often wonder what it would have been like back in 1962 for the families and friends waiting for loved ones to come off that flight; the thought that they had been blown out of the sky must have been awful, and in such a lonely spot of Missouri, right in the middle of the USA. We try to forget plane crashes, but 45 years on there must be relatives of those who died who are still grieving from what happened all those years ago. Many may have moved on. Indeed history seems to have passed them by entirely. The scarcity of information is testament to this. No one has ever come out and said "My dad/mother/wife/son/daughter was on that plane all those years ago". Searches through the archives of "The Daily Iowegian" reveal little except for articles published in the days following the crash. More recent articles by the same newspaper have been full of inaccurate information. 45 years on and CO Flight 11 must be fresh to someone...you can never fully forget the circumstances of someone's death, particularly when it was so tragic, sudden and lonely as this was.

At the time it was thought a violent storm had brought the aircraft down. The weather in the area on the night of the crash was poor with tornadoes and thunderstorms predicted. Flight 11 had requested route deviations to vector around the storm shortly before the explosion and subsequent crash.

My blog here is simply to state two things: Why is there no memorial? and Why so little information on what seems to be such a tragic (and historical) crash?

The Accident Report is rather sad to read. The crew seems to have done all they could when the explosion happened; many of the passengers were important businessmen and the cabin crew were all very young. The plane itself was a pioneering jet-liner that ushered in the age of jet travel and back in 1962, a 707 would have been the very pinnacle of luxury, comfort and technology.

We will never know what went on in the cabin that evening, what was served, what was said and done but we do know that innocent lives were lost and a flagship aircraft for Continental Airlines was deliberately destroyed.

Whether or not Doty's widow was ever hounded after the crash is also not known. Indeed there seems to be no record in newspapers from anywhere in the USA regarding the finding and naming of Doty as the culprit after the investigation into the crash.

May those passengers and crew rest in peace. 45 years is a long time. They are gone but hopefully not forgotten.

If anyone has any further information regarding Continental Airlines Flight 11 please contact me: dhcomet@gmail.com or simply blog me. I know it may seem odd that I have such an interest in such an old tragedy but my point-of-view comes from an aviation historical background and also one of sheer disbelief that none of the souls on board seem to be recognized or remembered in a memorial in the area.

As an update...MANY friends and family of victims have contacted me recently with information regarding CO11. It has been such a pleasure to deal with all of you and to hear your often harrowing recount of 1962. Recent developments to the NOT-forgotten CO11 crash include a push by locals for a memorial in the area. There are now more people involved than ever before in reviving the memory of this historical air crash.