Night Watchman Crashes a Curtiss Wright Junior

From Popular Aviation  August 1931

CHARLES MURRAY, 20-year-old student pilot and night watchman at the Denver, Colorado, Curtiss-Wright aviation field, 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, a nd he pulled the plane out on the field and took off. The flight was huge success, Murray 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.

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