The only reason anybody cares what happened to her is whe married a wealthy publisher (George Putnam) who paid to get her good press coverage and make her look both glamorous and heroic. The only reason she took up flying in the first place is she had been a passenger in a trans-Atlantic flight, which made her famous for being the first woman
to be flown across the Atlantic. She was embarrassed by all the attention she got for nothing other than sitting on her butt and waiting to arrive and thought learning to fly could make up for it. But she wasn't a natural "stick and rudder" man and was a mediocre pilot at best.
It wasn't her first mishap but a little less than two years before the ill-fated flight she ground-looped the same Lockheed Electra she later would disappear in on landing at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, and did considerable damage (which George was happy to pay to have repaired).
At the time there were any number of American aviatrixes (Jacqueline Cochran, Ann Baumgartner, Bessie Coleman, et Al) who were skilled pilots who flew to earn a paycheck. As opposed to a hobby pilot with a rich husband to keep them in airplanes and fuel.
I don’t get it. What do the letters mean?
“send lawyers, guns and money. The Sh*t has hit the fan”
Due apology to Warren Zevon .....
