Walking on Air (19 page)

11. At the end of the tour, Phoebe is hoisted on the shoulders of Edsel Ford and Michigan governor Fred W. Green. The Benson Ford Research Center, Dearborn, Michigan.

12. Pilots gather at the start of the 1929 National Women's Air Derby.
Left to right:
Ruth Nichols, Bobbi Trout, Blanche Noyes, Amelia Earhart, Dr. A. C. Rohrbach (German plane designer), Thea Rasche, Gladys O'Donnell, Phoebe Omlie. Cleveland Press Collection, Cleveland State University Library.

13. After winning in the CW class of the Women's Air Derby, Phoebe poses with her plane
Miss Moline
and her trophies. Left to right: trophy for winning closed-course race, the Aerol Efficiency Trophy, trophy for CW class win. Courtesy of Heather Taylor.

14. Phoebe preparing to meet President Herbert Hoover at the White House in 1930 to invite him to the National Air Races in Chicago. The Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-97332.

15. After winning the 1931 Transcontinental Handicap Air Sweepstakes, Phoebe is awarded with a horseshoe of roses. Minneapolis Public Library.

16. Phoebe Omlie, Free-for-All race winner at the National Air Races, 1931. Cleveland Press Collection, Cleveland State University Library.

17. Vernon and Phoebe Omlie circa mid-1930s. Phoebe Omlie Collection.

18. Phoebe Omlie meets with Amelia Earhart in Miami, 31 May 1937, the day before Earhart left on her fatal flight. Ninety-Nines Museum of Women Pilots, Oklahoma City.

19. Phoebe with Assistant Attorney General Stella Akin at Floyd Bennett Field as they leave for their Roosevelt campaign tour on 16 September 1936. Minneapolis Public Library.

20. Phoebe Omlie on the job. Minneapolis Public Library.

21. Phoebe Omlie stands with her plane
Miss Memphis
and her sweepstakes prize, a Cord Cabriolet automobile, after winning the 1931 Transcontinental Sweepstakes Derby. She and her dog pose in front of the family business at the Memphis Municipal Airport. Saint Louis University Special Collections.

On 6 August 1936, “one of the famous romances of the air came to an end.”
Phoebe received the devastating phone call in the early hours of the morning telling her that Vernon was dead; he had been killed in a plane crash. As she caught her breath, she asked: was he at the controls? They told her no, that Vernon had been a passenger on a commercial flight.
¹

He had bought a one-way ticket. Vernon was on his way to Detroit to pick up a new plane. The flight originated in New Orleans; he climbed aboard at Memphis, the only passenger traveling with the two pilots until they reached St. Louis. There, five more men boarded the late-night flight to Chicago. They took off from Lambert Field at 9:56
PM
. Weather conditions were good: partly cloudy, a 2000-foot ceiling, overcast skies, moderate fog, visibility 1½ miles, and a 4 mph wind. Six minutes after takeoff, the plane did not respond to a radio call. Controllers tried querying airports along the way. No word. They later learned that less than ten minutes after take-off, the plane crashed in an open pasture, engines wide open, wing digging into the dirt at top speed until it broke apart, killing all eight aboard. The sleek modern three-month-old Lockheed Electra
City of Memphis
had been routinely inspected during its stopover at St. Louis; investigators found no apparent mechanical failure.
²

It was four hours before a search party located the shattered Electra. All the bodies were thrown clear of the wreckage; the pilot's watch had stopped at 10:02
PM
. Given the condition of the wreckage, the best guess was that the pilot had become disoriented in the gathering ground fog over the Missouri River, made an attempt to turn back to Lambert Field, and had banked sharply to the left at full throttle while too near the ground. A wing-tip caught and tripped the plane into a cartwheel. The gear was retracted, indicating the pilot had not been trying to land. A full investigation led by Air Commerce director Eugene Vidal himself was unable to produce a better explanation than the one provided by Chicago and Southern Air Lines president Carleton Putnam: “It was one of those things that can't happen but still did.”
³

Captain Omlie had spent a lifetime in the air and was known as one of the most cautious fliers in the business. He had never crashed a ship in his entire career as a pilot. Articles about the tragedy noted the irony of Vernon meeting death as an air passenger on what was to have been a routine flight.
⁴
“How the evil Fates must have chortled that Vernon Omlie, who had worked so long and hard to lay a foundation for transport aviation, should thus be taken,” his widow later wrote.
⁵
Phoebe, a reporter noted, demonstrated her own “undaunted faith in aviation” by booking the first available flight home after learning of her husband's fatal crash.
⁶
Her mother and father flew in from Iowa City and his mother, sister, and brother joined his widow in Memphis. Vernon Omlie was buried in his Reserve Officers Flying Corps uniform with full military honors in a donated grave at Forest Hills Cemetery. His grave was banked with flowers, many in the shape of wings; a firing squad fired a military salute and an American Legion bugler sounded “Taps.”
⁷
Thirteen private planes, draped in black and flown by Vernon's friends, associates, and students, flew an aerial salute over the funeral party. One dropped roses. “Each gave the aviator's wing salute, dipped low over the cemetery, and ‘went upstairs' with struts singing a final farewell.”
⁸