United Airlines Flight 629

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**United Airlines Flight 629**
Summary
Date	November 1, 1955
Type	Bombing
Site	Longmont, Colorado
Passengers	39
Crew	5
Injuries	0
Fatalities	44
Survivors	0
Aircraft type	Douglas DC-6B
Operator	United Airlines
Tail number	N37559

United Airlines Flight 629, registration N37559, was a Douglas DC-6B aircraft which exploded over Longmont, Colorado en route from Denver, Colorado to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington on November 1, 1955. All 44 onboard were killed in the explosion.

The captain on the flight that day, Lee Hall, was a World War II veteran.

The flight took off at 6:52 p.m. Mountain time. Eleven minutes later, Denver tower controllers saw two bright lights in the sky north-northwest of the airport. Both lights were observed for thirty to forty-five seconds, and both fell to the ground at roughly the same speed. The controllers then saw a very bright flash originating at or near the ground which illuminated the base of the clouds. When the controllers saw the lights they quickly tried to determine whether the flashes were from an aircraft; all flights except Flight 629 were quickly accounted for. Ground searchers who reached the crash site noted that all aboard had died instantly. The debris from the accident was scattered across six square miles of Weld County, Colorado.

Investigators determined that the aircraft began to disintegrate near the empennage, or tail, and that the aft fuselage had been shattered by a force strong enough to cause extreme fragmentation of that part of the aircraft. The explosion had been so intense that investigators thought it unlikely to have been caused by any aircraft system or component. There was also a strong smell of explosives on items from the No. 4 baggage compartment.

Suspicions that a bomb had been placed in luggage loaded aboard the aircraft were fueled by the discovery of four pieces of an unusual grade of sheet metal, each covered in a gray soot. Further testing of the luggage from No. 4 compartment showed that each piece was contaminated with chemicals known to be byproducts of a dynamite explosion.

The FBI, certain that the aircraft had been brought down by a bomb, performed background checks on the passengers. Many had purchased life insurance at the airport just before boarding. One such insuree was Daisie King, 53, a Denver businesswoman who was traveling to Alaska to visit her daughter. When agents identified her baggage they found a number of newspaper clippings containing information about King's son, John Gilbert Graham, who had been arrested on a forgery charge in Denver in 1951. Graham, who held a grudge against his mother, was the beneficiary of both her insurance policies and her will. Agents also discovered that one of Mrs. King's Denver restaurants had been destroyed in an explosion; Graham had insured the restaurant and collected on the insurance.

Agents searched Graham's house and found wire and other bomb parts identical to those found in the wreckage. They also found an additional $40,000 in insurance policies; however, Mrs. King had not signed either these policies or those bought at the airport, and they were therefore worthless. Graham told agents that his mother had packed her own suitcase, but his wife revealed that Graham had wrapped a Christmas present for his mother on the morning of the explosion.

Graham confessed to having placed the bomb on board on November 13, 1955. He was charged with 44 counts of first degree murder the next day. He told police:

I then wrapped about three or four feet of binding cord around the sack of dynamite to hold the dynamite sticks in place around the caps. The purpose of the two caps was in case one of the caps failed to function and ignite the dynamite ... I placed the suitcase in the trunk of my car with another smaller suitcase...which my mother had packed to take with her on the trip.

Graham quickly recanted his confession, but at his 1956 trial his defense was unable to counter the massive amount of evidence presented by the prosecution. He was convicted of all 44 counts and, after a few short delays, was executed in the Colorado State Penitentiary gas chamber on January 11, 1957. Before his execution, he said about the bombing, "as far as feeling remorse for these people, I don't. I can't help it. Everybody pays their way and takes their chances. That's just the way it goes."

He was reportedly inspired to commit the crime by hearing of a similar incident, the Albert Guay affair in Quebec in 1949.

United still uses the flight number 629 today on its Washington (National) - Chicago (O'Hare) route.

This event was portrayed as the opening episode in the 1959 movie The FBI Story. Nick Adams played Jack Graham.

[edit] Similar incidents

Flight 629 was the second known case of an airliner being destroyed by a bomb over the mainland United States. The first proven case of sabotage in the history of commercial aviation occurred on October 10, 1933 near Chesterton, Indiana, when the empennage (tail) was blasted from a United Air Lines Boeing 247 by a nitroglycerin bomb set off with a timing device. The three crew members and four passengers were killed in the crash. No suspect was ever brought to trial in the case.

Other crashes in the United States caused by bombs include: