1948 Los Gatos DC-3 crash - january 1948 events .. Info |

On January 28, 1948, a plane crashed in the Diablo mountains killing 28 bracero farm workers being sent back to Mexico.
It inspired the Woodie Guthrie's song "Deportee". The workers were buried in a mass grave that was only marked: Mexicans. The Crash killed everyone aboard the plane.

"1948 Los Gatos DC-3 crash

On 28 January 1948, a DC-3 plane carrying 32 persons, mostly Mexican farm laborers, including some from the bracero guest worker program, crashed in the Diablo Range, 20 miles west of Coalinga, California. The crash, which killed everyone aboard the plane, inspired the song "Deportee" by Woody Guthrie.
Some passengers were returned to Mexico at the termination of the Bracero contracts, while others were illegal immigrants deported. The first news reports listed only the pilot, first officer, and flight attendant, and the rest are listed only as "deportees". It was initially identified, only 12 of the victims. Hispanic victims of the accident were placed in a mass grave in the cemetery of the Holy cross in Fresno, California, with their graves marked only as "Mexicans".

1. Accident.
In Douglas DC-3 aircraft belonging to the airline carriers in Burbank, California, was chartered by the immigration and naturalization service to fly twenty-eight Mexican nationals who were deported in a deportation center in El Centro, California.

For reasons never explained, the pilot, Frank Atkinson and pilot Marion Ewing took the plane DC-3 that only had beds for twenty-six passengers seven hours time routine and necessary security control for a flight, and the aircraft is certified to carry thirty-two passengers. Arriving in Oakland, California, after a routine flight, the crew was joined by ins guard, Frank Chaffin. The flight to refuel in Burbank, California, before continuing to El Centro.

At approximately 10:30 a.m., workers at Industrial road camp, Fresno County, located 21 Mi 34 km North-West of Coalinga, California, noticed that the DC-3 longitudinal white smoke from the left engine. The left wing suddenly ripped off, spilling nine passengers out of the gaping hole in the fuselage. The plane caught fire and nose-dived into the ground near Los Gatos Creek, explodes in a fireball. An investigation by the civil aviation authority discovered that a fuel leak in the port engine fuel pump ignited and the slip-stream and fanned the flames to a white hot intensity, acting as an oxygen acetylene torch, burn the main-spar, causing the accident.

The initial news indicated only the pilot, first officer, flight attendant, immigration and security, and the rest are listed only as "deportees". It was initially identified, only 12 of the victims. Hispanic victims of the accident were placed in a mass grave in the cemetery of the Holy cross in Fresno, California, with their graves marked only as "Mexicans". Grave 84 Buy 7 ft 25.6 2.1 m with two rows of caskets and not all bodies were buried the first day, but the box was not there night security.

2. Woody Guthrie song, "Deportee".
Singer and composer Woody Guthrie wrote a poem in 1948, complaining about the anonymity of workers who died in the crash, identified only as "deportees" in the media. When the family of Guthries poem was set to music ten years later, a College student Martin Hoffman, she became the folk song "sent the plane crash at Los Gatos".

The song was popularized by Pete Seeger, and was subsequently performed by Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Julie Felix, Cisco Houston, Willie Nelson, Dolly parton, johnny cash, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Kelly, Martin Joseph, ago, Richard shindell. and Ani DiFranco among others.

3. Aftermath.
Cesar Chavez, which later became a founding member of the Union of agricultural workers, learned about the tragic accident while serving in the U.S. Navy, helping to convince him that farm workers should be considered "as important people and not as agricultural implements".

The names of all of the victims were published in local Newspapers in 1948. In 2009, writer Tim Z. Hernandez began to look grave, and their names. With the help of others, to July 2013, revealed some names were misspelled in the record, and the money raised for a worthy monument. September 2, labor Day 2013, the memorial to the deportees, the stone was presented to mass at the cemetery of the Holy cross to Fresno by more than 600. The memorial includes all twenty-eight migrant workers, which included three women and one man, born in Spain, but not Mexico, was widely reported."