Northwest Airlines Flight 307

 

Near the corner of Emerson Avenue South and Minnehaha Parkway, there is a one-story home uncharacteristic of the neighborhood. To any passerby, it’s clear that this single-story house is not the same 1920’s vintage as the other two-story homes throughout the neighborhood. I have been a resident of this neighborhood for 35 years. Soon after I moved into our Emerson Avenue home, I learned the reason for this outlier house – a 1950s plane crash that leveled the original home and caused the death of 15 people.

On March 7, 1950, Northwest Airlines flight 307 originated in Washington D.C., with the final destination of Winnipeg, Manitoba. After a scheduled stop in Madison, Wis., the Martin 202 aircraft, built to carry 49 passengers, took off for its next scheduled stop in Rochester, Minn. With freezing rain in Rochester, the pilot, Don Jones, was directed to change courses to Minneapolis.

The plane approached Wold Chamberlain Airfield (now MSP airport) around 9 p.m. with 10 passengers and three crew members. Visibility was poor due to a significant snowstorm. For reasons still a mystery, Captain Jones did not use the instrument landing system (ILS) that the previous flights had used with success that evening. Instead, he attempted to do a visual site landing. As a result, the plane came in very low and 650 feet off center from the runway, and the left wing struck a 78-foot flagpole at Fort Stelling Cemetery. Apparently, unaware of the damaged wing, Jones pulled up the plane, and attempted to swing back for another landing try.

What he didn’t know was that, after the flag pole collision, the plane was doomed. A 30-foot section of the left wing separated and fell near the Washburn Water Tower. Jones radioed, “I’m falling,” and sent stress flares into the sky to light up the ground. After losing that section of the left wing, the plane was airborne only for another half mile and plunged into the home of Franklin and Marie Doughty. A fireball ensued, and the top floor of the house was immediately engulfed in flames.

In addition to the 10 passengers and three crew members that perished, the two youngest members of the Doughty family, Janet, age 10 and Tommy, age 8, also died, while asleep in their second floor bedrooms. The remaining Doughty family members, Marie and Franklin, and 15-year-old daughter, Diane, survived only because of the good fortune that they were watching a Minneapolis Lakers basketball game on the first floor at the time of the impact. 

The crash was the most deadly in Minnesota history at that time, and attracted national news. Our neighborhood was awash in gawkers for days afterwards, as investigators attempted to put together the puzzling pieces to the crash. My one personal connection to the crash was my neighbor, Evelyn Stenson, who was living on Emerson Avenue at the time of the crash. She shared with me that her house became “media central” for all the out-of-town journalists that covered the tragedy.

The crash was certainly a tragedy, but there are two postscripts: First, the tragedy for the Doughty family did not end on that day. Franklin Doughty, the father who was undoubtedly anguished over the loss of his two young children, died of a heart attack five years later, while on a business trip for his employer, Liberty Mutual. Perhaps he died of a broken heart.

Second, following the crash, there were several newspaper articles and editorial opinions that expressed the need to move the airport because of this deadly crash. Apparently, there was a site picked near Anoka at that time. Anyone flying into MSP these days knows that the new airport idea was never approved by our community leaders. Thank you, Arnie Carlson!

There is a boulder with a commemorative plaque set across Minnehaha Boulevard from the crash site and the current one-story house. A neighborhood effort headed by former city council person, Mark Kaplan, raised funds in 2011 to establish this memorial. If you find yourself going down the creek, take a moment to walk up to the boulevard and see the memorial plaque. Turn around and take a moment to gaze over the house, and imagine the heartache and  tragedy that reined from the skies 75 years ago.