High Sierra Topix

On March 13, 1974 at 8:28 p.m. on a moonless night, Sierra
Pacific Airlines Flight 802 crashed in the foothills of the White
Mountains at 6,100' level just minutes after taking off from the
Bishop Airport. The Wolper Productions Inc. movie crew was being
flown from Bishop to Burbank after finishing several days of location
shooting for a segment of the ABC television series "Primal Man" in
the Mammoth area. All 32 passengers and the 4 flight crew members
were killed in this accident. This was the worst air disaster in Inyo
County history with 36
fatalities.
The NTSB could find no indication of mechanical failure,
concluding that "it is difficult to conceive of any problem with the
aircraft that would have caused the flight to deviate from a safe
flight path over the valley and into the mountainous area where it
crashed." Thus, the exact cause of the accident remains a
mystery.
After checking out the site of the accident it was easy to see
that if the plane was a hundred feet higher or a few hundred feet to
the right, this accident never would have happen.

Photos at http://community.webshots.com/album/551108880iqpQIM

Link to a very well written story on this accident
http://www.donrjordan.com/convair.html

Link to the official NTSB report on the accident
http://amelia.db.erau.edu/reports/ntsb/aar/AAR75-01.pdf

Mtflyer

This sounds like a terrible crash, how very sad. Gosh seeing all the personal items just on the ground like that must have been kinda of strange to come across after so many years.

Fascinating, I had never heard of this crash. I read the entire report. Very sad. Thank you for the link.

Great photos and detail! Thanks!

Thanks for the pictures and links, mtflyer. The story was well written - very thoughtful of the victims.

I was also interested in this story because my father was an aeronautical engineer for General Dynamics / Convair in San Diego; he retired arround 1976. I was hoping the investigators for the plane manufacturer would be named... Dad went out on several investigations involving their planes in crashes.

He's in a nursing home now, but I may ask my Mom to ask if he remembers this investigation. He's still really sharp .