From Popular Aviation August 1931
Night Watchman Crashes a Curtiss Junior
CHARLES MURRAY, 20-year-old student pilot and night watchman at the Denver, Colorado, Curtiss-Wright aviation filed, was tired of staying on the ground. It was 5:30 a.m. and none of the officials would be at the field for several hours, and by that time the thrill of an early morning flight would be gone. The possibility also existed that the field officials would deny him the privilege of taking a plane. Murray eyed a shiny new Curtiss-Wright Junior parked in the hangar.
“Who would be the wiser if I took the junior up for a flight and then put it right back?” Murray thought.
The sight of the plane was too much for the air-minded youth, and he pulled the plane out on the field and took off. The flight was huge success, Murry told Capt. Ralph Hall, the field manager until he prepared to land, AND THEN,,
Murray was within fifteen feet of the ground when he made a sudden turn, which caused the plane to nose dive. The youth crawled out from beneath the wrecked plane with a badly cut face and a wrenched shoulder.