Northern Aviation History

    Donald Glass, former Bay area aviator, died in Juneau, Alaska, on January 19, it was learned here today, in precautionary action to safeguard his plane load of passengers.

    Glass saved their lives, then lost his own life in a trial flight to test a balky motor. He crashed into Gastine Channel. The veteran pilot had taken his passengers aboard for a flight to Anchorage and had taxied down the runway. One motor failed to respond properly, so he returned and discharged his passengers.

    Taking off alone, he barely cleared the Douglas bridge with black smoke trailing from one of the engines of his Stinson tri-motored land plane. The plane struck the water and bounced twice before sinking about three miles from the take-off spot.

    Glass' escapes from death in the air are remembered in this area. In 1932 he and a fellow pilot, James Angel of Richmond, were reported to have crashed in the sea off the coast of Mexico, where they had gone to establish an aerial transportation system, largely for air freighting of coffee from plantations in the interior to the coast. Later he was reported safe.

    On another occasion, December 10, 1936, he was feared lost in Alaska when his plane was overdue in stormy weather after hopping for Anchorage and Cordova from Juneau.

    Glass left Contra Costa County about five years ago to engage in commercial aviation at Juneau. Previously he had served with the U.S. Navy as a pilot.

    He was the son of Clifford Glass, member of the Contra Costa staff of County Assessor John M. Reid, who did nat learn of his son's death until a Tribune reporter called him today.

    He is also survived by two brothers, Leland Glass of Albany, employee of the Shell Chemical Company at Emeryville, and Harry Glass of Walnut Creek, employee of the Hercules Powder Company.

    Last Thursday's air tragedy near Juneau which took the life of Don Glass, prominent Contra Costa civilian flyer, was to have been his last, the Woodley Airway Company disclosed today.

    Chief Pilot Glass was on the point of "coming out" to spend a two months leave, the manager revealed, but storms delayed the trip and he took the fatal January 19 flight.

    Although losing his own life, Glass saved the lives of all his passengers when he made an emergency landing after he found one motor "balking" as he took off on a routine passenger flight. It was while he circled Gastine Channel in an attempt to adjust the trouble that airfield spectators saw the plane spurt black smoke and dive into the water.

    The United States Navy today took over the task of raising the tri-motored land plane from the channel and informed the family the flyer's body will be shipped to Contra Costa upon recovery.

    News of official action was included in a telegram sent to Glass' father, Harry Clifford Glass of the Assessor's office by the company manager, He said that if earlier plans had materialized the tragedy would have been averted. Had Pilot Glass left Alaska on January 16 as he originally intended, he and his wife, a former Vallejo girl, and their son, who live in Anchorage, would have been back in the States.

    The boy, Donald Clifford Glass, 12, until recently has been living in Seattle with his grandmother, Mrs H. C. Glass, Sr. Recently Mrs. Glass came to Emeryville to visit another son, Leland Glass. There is a third brother, Harry Glass, Jr., who lives in Walnut Creek.

    The family is in receipt of photography equipment, a hobby of the pilot, which he had forwarded previous to flying out of Alaska. Before going to Alaska the flyer did commercial flying in Mexico. He was Navy-trained at Pensacola, Florida.