Died in test flight of new DC-7B airliner
Crew member- radio operator- age 28
Son of Takamitsu Nakazawa & Fukiko Watanabe
Marriage
To Helene Toshiko Tamura
On 12 Apr 1956 at Gardena, Los Angeles, CA
California Death Records
Name: Roy Teruo Nakazawa
Birth: 3 Feb 1928 at Washington
Death: 31 Jan 1957 at Los Angeles Co.
Mother's Maiden Name: Watanabe
Father's Surname: Nakazawa
Tragic Death
In a dream sequence that recurs throughout the 1987 movie "La Bamba," depicting rock 'n roll singer Richie Valens, two planes fly over a schoolyard where youths play basketball in slow motion. The planes collide, explode and shower flaming wreckage across the San Fernando Valley, California school, Pacoima Junior High, and neighborhood. Twenty-eight-year-old Roy Teruo Nakazawa, a crew member in one of those planes, perished in the 1957 midair crash.
A student of the school, 15-year-old Richard Steven Valenzuela, who soon became known as singing star Ritchie Valens, developed an intense fear of flying after the 1957 accident. Ironically, two years later, Richie Valens, along with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) died in an Iowa plane crash, an event known as "the day the music died (Song "American Pie").
DETAILS
Mid-Air Collision
On Thursday, January 31, 1957, at 11:18 a.m., at 25,000 feet, a U.S. Air Force Northrop F-89 Scorpion jet fighter, on a test flight out of Palmdale, California, slammed nearly head-on into the wing of the brand-new Douglas DC-7B airliner that was returning to Santa Monica Municipal airport after its first functional test flight before delivery to Continental Airlines.
A crew of four, including radio operator Roy T Nakazawa, 28, was aboard the four-engine DC-7B. Co-pilot for the routine Douglas Aircraft Co. test flight was veteran flier Archie R. Twitchell, 50, who enjoyed a secondary career as an actor appearing in over 100 films, including Union Pacific, I Wanted Wings, Among the Living, Out of the Past, Fort Apache, I Shot Billy The Kid and Sunset Boulevard. The remaining DC-7B crew consisted of pilot William George Carr, 36, and flight engineer Waldo Beryl Adams, 42.
The Scorpion fighter jet burst into flames. Its pilot, Roland Earl Owen, 35, of Palmdale, went down with the jet in La Tuna Canyon, while the badly burned radar operator, Curtiss A. Adams, 27, parachuted to safety.
The DC-7B airliner pilot, William Carr, 36, of Pacific Palisades, struggled to control the plane as it went into a dive and final spin. Copilot Archie R. Twitchell, 50, of Northridge transmitted the last radio message from the crippled plane:
"Uncontrollable, uncontrollable … midair collision…. We are going in…. We've had it, boys. I told you we should have had chutes." A brief silence, then: "Say goodbye to everybody."
The remains of Roy and the other 3 crew members were found in the fuselage, which smacked into the ground at Pacoima Congregational Church, adjacent to Pacoima Junior High School. Part of an engine crashed through the roof of the church, destroying that building, while hundreds of flaming pieces of the aircraft slashed across the school playground, which was filled with hundreds of students, killing three students, Ronnie Brann, Robert Zallan and Evan Elsner, and injuring 74 others.
Audio Recording of Crash
Crew member- radio operator- age 28
Son of Takamitsu Nakazawa & Fukiko Watanabe
Marriage
To Helene Toshiko Tamura
On 12 Apr 1956 at Gardena, Los Angeles, CA
California Death Records
Name: Roy Teruo Nakazawa
Birth: 3 Feb 1928 at Washington
Death: 31 Jan 1957 at Los Angeles Co.
Mother's Maiden Name: Watanabe
Father's Surname: Nakazawa
Tragic Death
In a dream sequence that recurs throughout the 1987 movie "La Bamba," depicting rock 'n roll singer Richie Valens, two planes fly over a schoolyard where youths play basketball in slow motion. The planes collide, explode and shower flaming wreckage across the San Fernando Valley, California school, Pacoima Junior High, and neighborhood. Twenty-eight-year-old Roy Teruo Nakazawa, a crew member in one of those planes, perished in the 1957 midair crash.
A student of the school, 15-year-old Richard Steven Valenzuela, who soon became known as singing star Ritchie Valens, developed an intense fear of flying after the 1957 accident. Ironically, two years later, Richie Valens, along with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) died in an Iowa plane crash, an event known as "the day the music died (Song "American Pie").
DETAILS
Mid-Air Collision
On Thursday, January 31, 1957, at 11:18 a.m., at 25,000 feet, a U.S. Air Force Northrop F-89 Scorpion jet fighter, on a test flight out of Palmdale, California, slammed nearly head-on into the wing of the brand-new Douglas DC-7B airliner that was returning to Santa Monica Municipal airport after its first functional test flight before delivery to Continental Airlines.
A crew of four, including radio operator Roy T Nakazawa, 28, was aboard the four-engine DC-7B. Co-pilot for the routine Douglas Aircraft Co. test flight was veteran flier Archie R. Twitchell, 50, who enjoyed a secondary career as an actor appearing in over 100 films, including Union Pacific, I Wanted Wings, Among the Living, Out of the Past, Fort Apache, I Shot Billy The Kid and Sunset Boulevard. The remaining DC-7B crew consisted of pilot William George Carr, 36, and flight engineer Waldo Beryl Adams, 42.
The Scorpion fighter jet burst into flames. Its pilot, Roland Earl Owen, 35, of Palmdale, went down with the jet in La Tuna Canyon, while the badly burned radar operator, Curtiss A. Adams, 27, parachuted to safety.
The DC-7B airliner pilot, William Carr, 36, of Pacific Palisades, struggled to control the plane as it went into a dive and final spin. Copilot Archie R. Twitchell, 50, of Northridge transmitted the last radio message from the crippled plane:
"Uncontrollable, uncontrollable … midair collision…. We are going in…. We've had it, boys. I told you we should have had chutes." A brief silence, then: "Say goodbye to everybody."
The remains of Roy and the other 3 crew members were found in the fuselage, which smacked into the ground at Pacoima Congregational Church, adjacent to Pacoima Junior High School. Part of an engine crashed through the roof of the church, destroying that building, while hundreds of flaming pieces of the aircraft slashed across the school playground, which was filled with hundreds of students, killing three students, Ronnie Brann, Robert Zallan and Evan Elsner, and injuring 74 others.
Audio Recording of Crash
Died in test flight of new DC-7B airliner
Crew member- radio operator- age 28
Son of Takamitsu Nakazawa & Fukiko Watanabe
Marriage
To Helene Toshiko Tamura
On 12 Apr 1956 at Gardena, Los Angeles, CA
California Death Records
Name: Roy Teruo Nakazawa
Birth: 3 Feb 1928 at Washington
Death: 31 Jan 1957 at Los Angeles Co.
Mother's Maiden Name: Watanabe
Father's Surname: Nakazawa
Tragic Death
In a dream sequence that recurs throughout the 1987 movie "La Bamba," depicting rock 'n roll singer Richie Valens, two planes fly over a schoolyard where youths play basketball in slow motion. The planes collide, explode and shower flaming wreckage across the San Fernando Valley, California school, Pacoima Junior High, and neighborhood. Twenty-eight-year-old Roy Teruo Nakazawa, a crew member in one of those planes, perished in the 1957 midair crash.
A student of the school, 15-year-old Richard Steven Valenzuela, who soon became known as singing star Ritchie Valens, developed an intense fear of flying after the 1957 accident. Ironically, two years later, Richie Valens, along with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) died in an Iowa plane crash, an event known as "the day the music died (Song "American Pie").
DETAILS
Mid-Air Collision
On Thursday, January 31, 1957, at 11:18 a.m., at 25,000 feet, a U.S. Air Force Northrop F-89 Scorpion jet fighter, on a test flight out of Palmdale, California, slammed nearly head-on into the wing of the brand-new Douglas DC-7B airliner that was returning to Santa Monica Municipal airport after its first functional test flight before delivery to Continental Airlines.
A crew of four, including radio operator Roy T Nakazawa, 28, was aboard the four-engine DC-7B. Co-pilot for the routine Douglas Aircraft Co. test flight was veteran flier Archie R. Twitchell, 50, who enjoyed a secondary career as an actor appearing in over 100 films, including Union Pacific, I Wanted Wings, Among the Living, Out of the Past, Fort Apache, I Shot Billy The Kid and Sunset Boulevard. The remaining DC-7B crew consisted of pilot William George Carr, 36, and flight engineer Waldo Beryl Adams, 42.
The Scorpion fighter jet burst into flames. Its pilot, Roland Earl Owen, 35, of Palmdale, went down with the jet in La Tuna Canyon, while the badly burned radar operator, Curtiss A. Adams, 27, parachuted to safety.
The DC-7B airliner pilot, William Carr, 36, of Pacific Palisades, struggled to control the plane as it went into a dive and final spin. Copilot Archie R. Twitchell, 50, of Northridge transmitted the last radio message from the crippled plane:
"Uncontrollable, uncontrollable … midair collision…. We are going in…. We've had it, boys. I told you we should have had chutes." A brief silence, then: "Say goodbye to everybody."
The remains of Roy and the other 3 crew members were found in the fuselage, which smacked into the ground at Pacoima Congregational Church, adjacent to Pacoima Junior High School. Part of an engine crashed through the roof of the church, destroying that building, while hundreds of flaming pieces of the aircraft slashed across the school playground, which was filled with hundreds of students, killing three students, Ronnie Brann, Robert Zallan and Evan Elsner, and injuring 74 others.
Audio Recording of Crash
Crew member- radio operator- age 28
Son of Takamitsu Nakazawa & Fukiko Watanabe
Marriage
To Helene Toshiko Tamura
On 12 Apr 1956 at Gardena, Los Angeles, CA
California Death Records
Name: Roy Teruo Nakazawa
Birth: 3 Feb 1928 at Washington
Death: 31 Jan 1957 at Los Angeles Co.
Mother's Maiden Name: Watanabe
Father's Surname: Nakazawa
Tragic Death
In a dream sequence that recurs throughout the 1987 movie "La Bamba," depicting rock 'n roll singer Richie Valens, two planes fly over a schoolyard where youths play basketball in slow motion. The planes collide, explode and shower flaming wreckage across the San Fernando Valley, California school, Pacoima Junior High, and neighborhood. Twenty-eight-year-old Roy Teruo Nakazawa, a crew member in one of those planes, perished in the 1957 midair crash.
A student of the school, 15-year-old Richard Steven Valenzuela, who soon became known as singing star Ritchie Valens, developed an intense fear of flying after the 1957 accident. Ironically, two years later, Richie Valens, along with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) died in an Iowa plane crash, an event known as "the day the music died (Song "American Pie").
DETAILS
Mid-Air Collision
On Thursday, January 31, 1957, at 11:18 a.m., at 25,000 feet, a U.S. Air Force Northrop F-89 Scorpion jet fighter, on a test flight out of Palmdale, California, slammed nearly head-on into the wing of the brand-new Douglas DC-7B airliner that was returning to Santa Monica Municipal airport after its first functional test flight before delivery to Continental Airlines.
A crew of four, including radio operator Roy T Nakazawa, 28, was aboard the four-engine DC-7B. Co-pilot for the routine Douglas Aircraft Co. test flight was veteran flier Archie R. Twitchell, 50, who enjoyed a secondary career as an actor appearing in over 100 films, including Union Pacific, I Wanted Wings, Among the Living, Out of the Past, Fort Apache, I Shot Billy The Kid and Sunset Boulevard. The remaining DC-7B crew consisted of pilot William George Carr, 36, and flight engineer Waldo Beryl Adams, 42.
The Scorpion fighter jet burst into flames. Its pilot, Roland Earl Owen, 35, of Palmdale, went down with the jet in La Tuna Canyon, while the badly burned radar operator, Curtiss A. Adams, 27, parachuted to safety.
The DC-7B airliner pilot, William Carr, 36, of Pacific Palisades, struggled to control the plane as it went into a dive and final spin. Copilot Archie R. Twitchell, 50, of Northridge transmitted the last radio message from the crippled plane:
"Uncontrollable, uncontrollable … midair collision…. We are going in…. We've had it, boys. I told you we should have had chutes." A brief silence, then: "Say goodbye to everybody."
The remains of Roy and the other 3 crew members were found in the fuselage, which smacked into the ground at Pacoima Congregational Church, adjacent to Pacoima Junior High School. Part of an engine crashed through the roof of the church, destroying that building, while hundreds of flaming pieces of the aircraft slashed across the school playground, which was filled with hundreds of students, killing three students, Ronnie Brann, Robert Zallan and Evan Elsner, and injuring 74 others.
Audio Recording of Crash
Family Members
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Advertisement
