On April 9, 1937, a light plane carrying two men crashed into a mountainside at the Ridge Route near Gorman, instantly killing the occupants.

The pilot and passenger of the two-seater monoplane were both killed instantly after crashing onto the fog-covered mountainside on the Ridge Route near Gorman. The pilot, E.B. Christopher, was a pioneer aviator out of Wichita, Kansas, and his passenger was E.A. Crumm, the vice president of a company. It was unclear what their affiliation was when they both set off onto the plane.

According to an ACME wirephoto, the men were both prominent aviation officials, but there is uncertainty about Crumm’s background.

What is certain is Christopher’s aviation background, as he was a pioneer and aircraft manufacturer. He first made his fortune by flying and selling planes for Travel Air, one of Wichita’s light-plane manufacturers.

By 1927, he would become an investor of Swallow Airplane Manufacturing Co., and when facing foreclosure, he would buy out the other investors with the hopes of turning it around

Sam Bloomfield, one of Swallow’s employees, helped Christopher with designing and engineering a new plane. This was planned to put Swallow back on the map, but by 1936, only three were built.

One of those three planes was the one lost to the fog a short time later.

By this time, Santa Clarita Valley residents were used to the trials and errors of aviation, as 17 deaths were accounted for in two plane crashes in the span of a month that same winter.

Three months earlier, on Jan. 12, a Boeing 247-D crashed south of Newhall while on approach to Burbank, resulting in the deaths of five of 13 persons on board. Three weeks before that, on Dec. 27, 1936, another Burbank-bound 247-D crashed south of Newhall, killing all 12.

On the same day of Christopher’s death, aviation history was made. The first Japanese-built aircraft, nicknamed the Kamikaze, made a 51-hour flight from Japan to London.

Following the death of Christopher, Bloomfield took over Swallow and made it into an aircraft mechanic school and subcontractor for plane parts.

To read yesterday’s Today in SCV History, click here.