Tulsa, OK Airplane Falls in Wind Gust, May 1930

Dallas Aviator Falls to Death

Workaday Crash Kills Airman of Fame in Flood and Fire.

Too steep a bank in a strong wind spun a plane to ground near Tulsa Wednesday afternoon and as it smashed Jimmy Youngblood of Dallas was fatally injured. He died as his wife was winging to Oklahoma having taken off soon after word of the accident reached Love Field.

Having unloaded Paul Vance, a companion pilot of the Southern Air Transport, Inc., after a ferry flight from Fort Worth, Youngblood was starting home. Five hundred feet up after leaving Garland Airport at Tulsa the plane was caught in the heavy gust. The injured man was taken to a Tulsa hospital, where he died.

At the Dallas airport a fast plane was put on the line as word was sent to the Oak Lawn home of Jimmy Youngblood's wife, a bride of a year ago in February. When she arrived at Love Field and the waiting ship she was whisked northward but arrived after her husband's death.

Ends Colorful Four Years

Another in the Youngblood family is Jimmy Junior, long since initiated into flying and, his father has predicted, just cut out to be a flyer.

The workaday crack-up ended a flying career of four years into which had been crowded a sequence of services of mercy.

When the Mississippi River's devastating flood overflowed several States and destroyed property and life National Guardsmen Jimmy Youngblood flew day after day over the valley land, up and down the levees, searching for breaks that might exact more life; back and forth over the flooded region carrying food and serum.

Just Missed West Point.

Later, as a reserve flyer, having been trained in the air as an army man, he was called again by the National Guard to fight disaster---a raging fire that threatened to wipe out the Ozark national forest. Carrying a ranger who mapped the fire-swept regions, Youngblood piloted a plane across the forest, through clouds of smoke, then down close, so his passenger could determine the extent of the fire. They also flew to small towns in the mountains, dropping instructions for fighting the blaze.

Jimmy Youngblood failed to get into West Point because there was no vacancy from his district, although he had passed all examinations; he had "army" in his head and was sent to an army flying school instead.

Dallas Morning News, Dallas, TX 22 May 1930
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!