Prior to departure the top Republican elected officials had dined together at the Klamath Falls home of Marshall Cornett. Pilot Hogue had checked by telephone at that time to confirm that weather conditions had cleared up in the Adel vicinity.[3]
The small red-and-white plane took off from the Klamath Falls Airport at 10:00 pm on the night of Tuesday, October 28, with a 30-minute flight planned to the Kittredge Ranch in the isolated Warner Valley, located about 70 miles to the east, near the town of Adel.[2] The aircraft was slated to land at the Coleman Lake Landing Area, located about 8 miles south of the Kittredge Ranch where the party would be hunting.[3]
The plane, owned jointly by Senator Cornett and ranch owner Oscar Kittredge, never arrived at its destination.[3] Oscar Kittredge had remained at the landing site until midnight before returning home,[2] and had contacted Cornett's wife early the next day, October 29, to learn if plans had for some reason been changed.[3] It was then that it was determined that the Beechcraft Bonanza had gone missing. A search ensued.
Search efforts
News of Governor Snell's missing flight garnered front page attention around the state of Oregon.Oregon Senate President Marshall Cornett, co-owner of the aircraft, was killed in the October 1947 crash.
A search and rescue operation was immediately launched, with 14 planes from the area launched the next morning to begin systematically searching for the missing aircraft and any sign of survivors.[2] Officials held out hope that the small plane had been able to land in a small, flat area and that its limited radio range was being blocked by the rugged terrain in the region.[2]
The search was targeted to the vicinity of Dog Lake in Lake County due to a telephone tip from a cattle ranch employee camped in the vicinity, who reported having heard the faltering engine of a small plane shortly after 10:00 pm the previous evening.[4] This led searchers based out of Lakeview Airport to search the vicinity of Dog Lake, where they discovered the plane's crash site about 2 miles west of the lake at 4:00 pm on October 29.[4] The nearest town to the site of the crash was the hamlet of Bly, located 22 miles north of the nearly inaccessible, heavily forested place of impact.[5]
The crash had occurred in a mountainous region at about 6,000 feet elevation, with the hillsides heavily timbered in mature Ponderosa pine.[6] Those originally discovering the crash site reported that the plane had cut a swath through the hillside, snapping off trees, bending the aircraft's wings at a 90-degree angle and mangling it so severely that "no one could be alive."[5]
The bodies of Snell (age 52), Cornett (49), and Farrell (41) were recovered on October 30, with darkness and rugged terrain having prevented their recovery the same day the crash was discovered.[5] One passenger had been ejected from a door that had come open in the crash with the other three bodies remaining strapped in the fuselage, according to a member of the U.S. Forest Service party which made its way to the scene.[6]
Political succession
According to the Oregon Constitution as written at the time of the crash, the simultaneous deaths of both the Governor and his heir-apparent, the President of the Senate, elevated the Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives to the Governorship as next in the order of succession.[2] Portland Republican Representative John Hall thus assumed the mantle of leadership.[2]
The order of succession to the governorship in Oregon was constitutionally changed in the early 1970s, to place the Secretary of State first in succession and the State Treasurer second.
The Beechcraft Bonanza is an American general aviation aircraft introduced in 1947 by Beech Aircraft Corporation of Wichita, Kansas. The six-seater, single-engined aircraft is still being produced by Beechcraft and has been in continuous production longer than any other aircraft in history. More than 17,000 Bonanzas of all variants have been built, produced in both distinctive V-tail and conventional tail configurations; early conventional-tail versions were marketed as the Debonair.
The Beechcraft Baron is a light twin-engined piston aircraft designed and produced by Beechcraft. The aircraft was introduced in 1961. A low-wing monoplane developed from the Travel Air, it remains in production.
The Beechcraft Model 50 Twin Bonanza is a small twin-engined aircraft designed by Beechcraft as an executive transport for the business market. It was developed to fill a gap in Beechcraft's product line between the single-engined Model 35 Bonanza and the larger Model 18. The Twin Bonanza is dissimilar to the Bonanza, being much larger and heavier and using more powerful engines, while in its earliest form having only half the passenger capacity of the Model 18.
Earl Wilcox Snell was an American politician, businessman, and member of the Republican Party, serving in the Oregon House of Representatives, as the Oregon Secretary of State, and as the 23rd Governor of Oregon. American journalist John Gunther described Snell as "genial, mediocre, and perpetually on the fence."
Crater Lake–Klamath Regional Airport is a public use airport in Klamath County, Oregon, United States, five miles southeast of Klamath Falls, which owns it. It is used by general aviation, military aviation and a few airline flights. In 2013, the name of the airport was changed to Crater Lake-Klamath Regional Airport.
Cascade Airways was an airline in the northwest United States which flew primarily regional air routes out of Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1969, it operated for 17 years and was shut down in 1986. Its IATA code (CZ) was later assigned to China Southern Airlines which was formed two years after Cascade's shutdown.
West Coast Airlines was a local service carrier, a scheduled airline certificated by the federal Civil Aeronautics Board, linking small cities in the Pacific Northwest with larger cities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Montana, California and north to Alberta in Canada. It was headquartered in the Westlake area of Seattle, Washington.
John Hubert Hall was an American Republican politician from the US state of Oregon. He was Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives in 1947, second in line to the governorship, when the governor, secretary of state, and senate president were all killed in a plane crash. He served as the 24th Governor of Oregon for just over one year.
Robert Sylvester Farrell Jr. was an American Republican politician in the state of Oregon.
The Oregon Department of Aviation (ODAV) is an agency of the government of the U.S. state of Oregon chiefly responsible for matters relating to the continuing development of aviation as part of the state's transportation system, and the safety of its airways. In addition to operating the 28 airports owned by the State of Oregon, the department licenses more than 450 public or private airports, heliports and landing areas, and registers all pilots and non-military aircraft based within the state. Its activities include overseeing aviation system planning, providing administrative and technical support for community airport planning and development, administering an airport pavement maintenance program, providing small community aviation grants, and conducting aviation and public education programs.
William Kittredge was an American writer from Oregon, United States, who lived mostly in Missoula, Montana.
The Forty-fourth Oregon Legislative Assembly convened in 1947 for its regular biennial session, from January 13 to April 5, at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem. Republicans held overwhelming majorities over the Democrats in both the Senate (25–5) and the House of Representatives (58–2). The body held no special sessions. The Senate President was Marshall E. Cornett and the Speaker of the House was John Hubert Hall.
West Coast Airlines Flight 720 was a scheduled passenger flight in the northwest United States from Klamath Falls, Oregon to Seattle, Washington, with intermediate stops at Medford, Eugene and Portland, Oregon. On March 10, 1967, it crashed shortly after takeoff from Klamath Falls, killing all three crew members and the flight's lone passenger.
Marshall Eugene Cornett was an Oregon businessman and American Republican politician serving in the Oregon State Senate and as Senate President during the 1947 legislative session. Along with Governor of Oregon Earl Snell and Oregon Secretary of State Robert S. Farrell, Jr., he was killed in a plane crash in 1947.
The 1950 Oregon gubernatorial election took place on November 7, 1950 to elect the governor of the U.S. state of Oregon. Incumbent Republican governor Douglas McKay defeated Democratic nominee Austin F. Flegel.
The 408th Armament Systems Group is an inactive United States Air Force (USAF) unit. Its last assignment was with Air Force Materiel Command's 308th Armament Systems Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. It was inactivated in 2010.
The following events occurred in October 1947:
Warner Buck Snider, also known as W. B. Snider or Buck Snider, was a city recorder, county sheriff, rancher, and Oregon state legislator. He was a Republican member of the Oregon House of Representatives for two terms, from 1933 through 1936. After leaving the legislature, Snider returned to cattle ranching. He served as president of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association and actively advocated for grazing rights and highway construction in eastern Oregon.
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