United Airlines Chesterton Crash

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**United Airlines, NC13304**
Summary
Date	October 10, 1933
Type	Sabotage via probable nitroglycerin bomb
Site	Chesterton, Indiana
Fatalities	7
Injuries	0
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Boeing 247
Operator	United Airlines
Tail number	NC13304
Passengers	4
Crew	3
Survivors	0

A Boeing 247 operated by United Airlines and registered as NC13304 crashed near Chesterton, Indiana, on October 10, 1933. The flight, carrying three crew and four passengers, originated in Newark, New Jersey. It had landed in Cleveland and was headed to Chicago, en route to its final destination of Oakland, California. All aboard died in the crash.

Eyewitnesses on the ground reported hearing an explosion at about 9:15 p.m., and told of seeing the plane in flames at an altitude of about 1,000 feet. A second explosion followed after the plane crashed.

An investigator from the Porter County coroner's office and Northwestern University examined evidence from the crash, and concluded that the crash had been due to a bomb. Melvin Purvis, head of the United States Bureau of Investigation office in Chicago, described the damage: "Our investigation convinced me that the tragedy resulted from an explosion somewhere in the region of the baggage compartment in the rear of the plane. Everything in front of the compartment was blown forward, everything behind blown backward, and things at the side outward. "The gasoline tanks, instead of being blown out, were crushed in, showing there was no explosion in them." Investigators identified nitroglycerin as the probable explosive agent.

Although there was a report that a man was seen carrying a brown package onto the plane in Newark, no suspect has ever been identified or charged in this incident.

This is thought to be the first proved act of air sabotage in the history of commercial aviation.

One of the air crew killed was the stewardess, Alice Scribner of Chicago. She was the first stewardess to be killed in a plane crash.