Los Angeles – Las Vegas – Salt Lake City

On January 11, 1930 at 02:38 AM, Los Angeles – Las Vegas – Salt Lake City experienced a crash involving Boeing 95, operated by Western Air Express, with the event recorded near Cedar City Utah.

The flight was categorized as postal (mail) and the reported phase was flight at a mountains crash site.

1 people were known to be on board, 1 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 1, crew fatalities: 1, passengers on board: 0, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is weather. The pilot Maurice Graham was performing a mail flight from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City with an intermediate stop in Las Vegas. He departed Las Vegas at 2200LT bound for Salt Lake City. While flying at night over the mountains east of Cedar City, Utah, he encountered poor weather conditions with blizzard. At a height of 12,000 feet, the aircraft stalled and crash landed on a mountain slope. The pilot was unhurt and walked away with the mail package. As the aircraft did not arrive in Salt Lake City, SAR operations were initiated but no trace of the aircraft nor the pilot was found. Eventually, Ward Mortenson and Elburn Orton, two youthful sheepherders, found the wreckage of the aircraft on 24 June 1930 some 22 miles south of Cedar City, in the Kanarra Mountains. The dead body of the pilot was found few days later, in July 1930, six miles away from the crash site.

Aircraft reference details include registration NC420E, MSN 1064, year of manufacture 1929.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 37.6717°, -113.0963°.