On the morning of November 8, 1957, the crew of 8 members and 36 passengers boarded a long-range Boeing Stratocruiser 377 aircraft at San Francisco International Airport. They hugged their loved ones goodbye and packed their suitcases and bags for the journey, as they were supposed to be the first leg of a round-the-world flight. However, the plane never arrived in Hawaii.
On the peninsula to the right, it originated and remains one of the greatest mysteries of aviation, the Romance of the Skies Clipper—known as Pan American Airways Flight 7 on this day.
For the past few decades, Herken Gregg and Ken Fortenberry have been tirelessly working together to research the tragic disappearance of a plane. Their paths crossed about 20 years ago through an online messaging board. Motivated by personal connections, these two men continue to be determined to find answers. Although many details of the crash are not personally remembered, there are still a few individuals who remain committed to finding the truth.
The 44 individuals on the aircraft, including 12 from the Bay Area, tragically perished in an act of deliberate mass murder-suicide, an explosion, sabotage, or a mechanical malfunction. Ken and Gregg, having reached their own conclusions, now share a determination to establish a memorial that pays tribute to the lives that were lost. “To me, the last positive experience these individuals had on Earth was in the San Francisco Bay Area, and many of them called this place home,” Ken explains. “They boarded a flight, be it for vacation or business purposes, and halfway through the journey, they were suddenly taken from us. I firmly believe that people’s lives hold more value than a mere passing headline.”
Pan Am Flight 7 vanished at 6:35PM, with an urgent alert issued by Air Traffic Control. There was no distress call or check-in, but the pilots radioed ground control with a routine position report at 6:04PM. They also did not make a distress call or check-in, but radioed ground control with a routine position report every hour. The trip was luxurious but expensive, costing around $300 for tickets. Flight attendants started serving a seven-course dinner and caviar, and champagne was being served as they roamed the cabin. The pilots announced an easy and smooth 10-hour flight to Honolulu, and the 36 passengers settled into their seats. The weather was perfect, with calm seas and clear skies. Pan Am Flight 7 took off from SFO at 11:51AM.
The intensive air-sea search began the next day. Ships, aircrafts, and submarines scoured the area near the last reported position of the plane. It wasn’t until November 14 that a probable wreckage of the plane was spotted on radar, leading to the discovery of debris and the bodies of 19 people floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 955 miles northeast of Honolulu. The plane plummeted into the water at 5:25 PM, 21 minutes after the plane’s last routine position report. The impact broke wristwatches, which helped pinpoint the moment of the plane’s crash.
Pan Am flight attendants Marie McGrath and Yvonne Alexander.
The Civil Aeronautics Board initiated its inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Pan Am Flight 7 while bereaved families anxiously awaited explanations. It wasn’t until January 1959 that an unsatisfactory and inconclusive report was issued, as the investigation failed to determine any likely reason for the crash.
Ken recalls that it was just a special place for him. Before relocating to Santa Clara, where Bill Fortenberry played an instrumental role in establishing the Methodist Church in Shoreview, California, Ken’s family moved from New York to San Mateo. It was in Santa Clara that Ken learned that his father, Pan, was a missing second officer in the 7th Am. Fortenberry Ken was living in a brand-new house next to a dairy farm and plum orchards in Santa Clara.
His father’s body was never recovered. They’re gonna find them somewhere. Ken remembers his father saying, “Your dad’s a great swimmer, Son.” But I do recall being a crying kid with my eyes out, specifically at the moment my mother told us that the plane was missing. Ken woke up on a Saturday morning at the age of six, but I don’t specifically recall the time he says. He woke up to find his house full of strangers.
My father became those letters. He was a prodigious writer, and Ken, a writer himself, would often mention his impressive notes. As he grew up, he discovered his father’s old letters written from overseas. After the crash that affected Ken’s family, they moved back to South Carolina to be closer to his mother’s family. Ken recalls, “He would always talk about how proud he was of us three boys.” Although my dad was often away for long periods of time, he would also spend weeks at home. Those weeks were special to us, creating cherished memories. Ken remains grateful for the happy recollections, including camping trips to Clear Lake and Yosemite with his father, even at the age of 65.
In 1957, Gregg Herken had recently relocated to San Mateo from Denver and was struggling to assimilate at his new school. He recalls, “I possessed a buckskin jacket and I believed it was the most impressive item, but it made me stand out.” Gregg’s temporary instructor at Sunnybrae Elementary, Marie McGrath, discreetly recommended to his parents that he “discard the jacket.” He reflects, “I wore that to school and all of a sudden, I became well-liked.” Gregg is indebted to Marie McGrath for that.
Marie, who had just moved from Denver, worked as a substitute teacher at Abbott Middle School, where she also substituted as a secretary for Mom. She told us about her exotic adventures and shared stories of bringing “luau” food from Clipper the class and “Hawaii.” Marie recalls her downtime as a substitute teacher and her second career as a Pan Am stewardess, which she pursued after graduating from Aragon High School.
Gregg was sitting in class when the principal announced that Miss McGrath’s plane was missing over Pennsylvania. He always felt grateful to Marie for helping him adjust to his new life in California, and he remembers thinking, “I never imagined flying into a cloud and coming out again, but this time, it felt like a dream.”
Ken observes that Pan American had a substantial presence in San Francisco, boasting a multitude of employees. The San Francisco Bay Area served as the primary hub for the majority of Pan Am 7’s staff, including William Fortenberry and Marie McGrath, both residing in Burlingame.
All of their lives were lost. However, he was just on vacation, working as a pilot. Alexander Robert, a Pan Am pilot, lived in Los Altos with his wife and three children. He planned to visit his seriously ill mother in Hawaii, so he was on his way to San Francisco to catch a flight to Honolulu. Louis Rodriguez, an orderly surgical nurse, was going to San Francisco to attend a funeral for his mother. Fred Choy, a machinery repairman, was traveling to Honolulu to address the U.S. Chamber of Commerce convention. Edward Ellis, a pilot, was taking care of his ailing mother in San Francisco before he resigned from his position as a registered nurse two days before his flight to Hong Kong. Ruby Quong, a registered nurse, resigned from her position to travel to Hong Kong to take care of her mother. Ken also knew the details and anecdotes of the passengers’ backstories through his research.
Just to jog my memory, “You’re not only doing this for yourself, Ken, but also for these other families who have not found closure.” Ken had a photo of the Clack family on his desk for a long time. “They all perished.” “They were returning to Tokyo where he held a high-ranking position at Dow Chemical Company,” Ken explained, as he formed a bond with Norma Clack, a woman from Michigan, whose uncle was accompanied by his wife and four kids, extending beyond the Bay Area.
As a child, I made a solemn promise that no matter how long it took, I would uncover the truth behind the disappearance of that aircraft. I vividly remember the intense anger I felt as I walked back to my house from the mailbox. It was infuriating to realize that, even after seven years, virtually no progress had been made in the investigation. “I received a bureaucratic and unsatisfactory response that only fueled my frustration,” he recalls. When he was just 13 years old, Ken Fortenberry took matters into his own hands and wrote a letter to the Civil Aeronautics Board, seeking updates on the crash investigation. It was this precise moment that ignited his relentless pursuit for answers.
I always researched plane crashes, even as I grew up as an adult. Ultimately, I became an investigative journalist and an award-winning editor, influenced admittedly by Ken’s childhood trauma. I was a kid at the time, but I made sure to take note of this constant thread in every spare moment. I kept records of it everywhere I went, from archives to libraries. You can imagine how challenging it was to track down addresses before the days of the internet. Ken points out that long-distance telephone calls cost a fortune back then and says, “You gotta remember, we didn’t have the internet back in those days.” Tracking down addresses was even more challenging, but Ken remained committed to his formidable goal, despite facing tough decades following the crash.
Before elucidating on the existence of three key suspects in the case, he states, “Firstly, we have the purser who exhibited suicidal tendencies and had left a modified version of his will in the glove compartment of the car he parked at the airport. Secondly, there was a passenger who purchased a single-trip ticket destined for Hawaii and had acquired three insurance policies on himself, despite being heavily indebted. Lastly, the propellers posed a problem as they were prone to exceeding their recommended speed, which had caused issues in the past.” Meanwhile, Gregg Herken embarked on his own all-consuming investigation upon assuming the role of curator at the National Air and Space Museum in 1988. Being in close proximity to the National Transportation Safety Board, he recognized an opportune moment to uncover the truth behind Marie’s plane incident. “I soon discovered that this was indeed one of the most intriguing enigmas in aviation history,” he affirms.
Journalists and naval officers examine wreckage collected from the site of the accident.
“And we hit it off from the very start and have been research colleagues ever since,” stated Ken. Gregg traveled to North Carolina to meet Ken after Gregg replied, ‘Hey, I’m also interested in this case!’ Ken shared a request for information on a messenger board approximately two decades ago, which enabled the two Pan Am 7 investigators to locate each other. Ken emphasizes, “Truly, the emergence of the Internet brought the story to life and greatly facilitated the pursuit of leads,” as their separate investigations advanced, fortunately technology also progressed.
“He cheated me for decades,” he declares, Tania, Crosthwaite’s stepdaughter, Ken unsuccessfully reached out to in his pursuit for answers. “At times, I believed it was an accident,” he admits. “Then, I would suspect Payne caused the explosion, and suddenly, I would suspect Crosthwaite caused it,” Ken’s perspective would constantly shift with each new clue. Eugene Crosthwaite, an unhappy Pan Am purser from Felton, Ken also delved into the background of another potential suspect. Prior to the crash, William Payne, a former Navy frogman who purchased a one-way ticket and an excessive amount of life insurance, he unraveled the story of. For many decades, he oscillated between hypotheses, initially concentrating on mechanical problems. Flight 7 is Missing: The Search for My Father’s Killer, the culmination of his life’s work, he published in 2020. Writing a book was always in the recesses of his mind, even when he was just 13 years old, Ken believes.
I concluded that the forensic psychologist gave me more information and painted a picture of his father’s death, blaming Eugene Crosthwaite for it, as Ken recounts. She laid out that her stepdad was suicidal and it gave me a lot to think about. The next day, Ken flew to Houston to meet Tania, and then we had a conversation about it. Later, he received a Facebook message about the “blue out” and we discussed it.
In this instance, something extremely comparable might have occurred. I believe that they nearly relinquished command of the aircraft but managed to execute an urgent landing on an island. There was a parallel occurrence a couple of years prior with the identical kind of aircraft where the propeller whirled out of control. “I believe it was a disastrous mechanical breakdown,” he speculates. Nevertheless, Gregg, presently a retired history professor residing in Santa Cruz, arrived at a distinct determination.
Image: Courtesy of Ken Fortenberry.
After all these years, Ken and Gregg have become great friends, even though they have different opinions on the outcome of their investigation. Ken notes that they won’t know for sure until they find the plane and reach the bottom of the ocean. Both of them are tired but they have managed to comfortably reconcile their disagreements.
Ken ponders, “Their lives must be commemorated in some manner.” Ken asserts, “I strongly believe that this place held significance for numerous individuals.” Gregg declares, “The crash brought about significant alterations in aviation standards and safety protocols.” Ken and Gregg firmly believe that it is crucial not to let the valuable lives lost be forgotten, as the wreckage of Clipper Romance of the Skies deteriorates on the ocean floor and recollections of the ill-fated aircraft gradually fade away. Without a burial site to pay respects to.
I eagerly anticipate the unveiling of a formal memorial to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the crash of Flight 7, which will permanently cement the ties between Francisco San and the Bay Area. I feel so close to Ken and Gregg, as my heart is in the same place where they left. Just reflecting on “Reflects Ken,” I know that the memorial will be a fitting tribute to the 44 victims. After tireless and often frustrating outreach efforts, the Memorial Committee finally found a warm reception in Millbrae, where the City Council agreed to place the memorial within the city, likely in Park Vista Marina. All the money raised and the pages set up on Facebook and GoFundMe remain dedicated to the goal of establishing a permanent tribute for the victims of Pan Am Flight 7.