March 1 marked 60 years since Paradise Airlines crash into Genoa Peak

Friday marked the 60^th anniversary of the deadliest airline crash in Nevada history when 85 people were killed March 1, 1964, after Paradise Airlines Flight 901A slammed into Genoa Peak.

In 2021, East Fork Fire Protection Board President Jacques Etchegoyhen recalled riding his bicycle downtown with his friend Alan Biaggi in March 1964.

“As we rode our bicycles up, we saw something we would never expect to see as 6-year-olds,” he said in 2021. “They were wheeling bodies into the CVIC Hall in downtown Minden.

The hall was used as a temporary morgue for the bodies the people killed in the crash.

“Debris and bodies were strewn across a quarter mile,” Etchgoyhen related. “The volunteers in Minden, Gardnerville and Genoa went up and for days retrieved bodies and brought them to the CVIC Hall.”

In a March 5, 1964, story R-C reporter Kay Sanders said members of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse were called in by Sheriff George Byers to begin a search for the airliner, after a report that a loud explosion had been heard in the canyon above Woodfords.

The posse set out for Horse Meadows east of Jobs Peak with two snowcats guided by Delaney Kizer and accompanied by Undersheriff Dave McCreary. The search lasted all Sunday night with the posse reporting stormy conditions and at least 4 feet of snow.

The posse didn’t locate the wreckage but was close when the plane was found by helicopter out of Stead Air Force Base at 7:36 a.m. March 2. Taking part in the search were Bud Brown, Bill Godecke, Dan Howerton, Cotton Byrom, Jim Callahan, Piete Idiart, Max Jones, Merrill Vann and Glenn Logan. On Monday night they were relieved by Phil McKinnon and George Farren, who manned the roadblock. Bob Pruett and Lawrence Jacobsen took over at midnight until the following morning.

By noon March 3, Sanders reported nine volunteers went up to help.

In 2014, South Lake Tahoe resident and then disc jockey Bill Kingman told  Tahoe Daily Tribune reporter Griffin Rogers he remembered the day.

“I remember looking out the window at the time …” said Kingman, “and there was zero visibility. And I remember thinking no one can fly in this.”

The plan on March 1, 1964, was for the aircraft to take off from Oakland and make two stops — one in Salinas, Calif., and one in

San Jose, Calif. — before arriving at Lake Tahoe Airport shortly before noon, according to the Tribune story written by Griffin Rogers.

At 8:43 a.m., the plane departed Oakland. It had 81 passengers on board and a crew of four by the time it was headed toward Lake Tahoe.

At 10:57 a.m., it made radio communication with an outbound Paradise Airlines flight from the basin. The captain advised Flight 901A of “icing at 12,000 (feet)” and snow showers, according to the accident report.

At 11:27 a.m., the plane made contact with a Paradise Airlines passenger agent at Tahoe Valley Airport, which relayed the weather in the area: 2,000 feet overcast with three miles of visibility.

The last known transmission came through two minutes later, when the passenger agent heard a radio call, but he wasn’t able to establish a connection. With communications cut off, the aircraft wasn’t found until the next morning.