40th anniversary of Tahoe plane crash

Forty years ago, 300 feet decided the fate of 85 people who wanted to ski and gamble at South Shore.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the worst aviation disaster in Lake Tahoe, when a confused pilot crashed the passenger plane Constellation into Genoa Peak, three miles east of Kingsbury Grade.

All 85 people on board - four crew members and 81 passengers - died in the snowstorm that quickly hid the wreckage and bodies. Sorrow, speculation and bizarre tales soon followed.

Looters gravitated to the site. Media swarmed and squabbled for access. A man guided by a sniffing sheriff's weasel was the first person to view the scene.

The operator, Paradise Airlines, was grounded by the Civil Aeronautics Board. El Dorado County Board of Supervisors received $152 million in claims from relatives of the dead. Lake Tahoe Airport, which was then named Tahoe Valley Airport, received the funds that year for an airport tower.

Witnesses, blinded by a snowstorm, recalled hearing the plane and the crash.

"All of a sudden, you heard it, then you didn't hear it," said Pat Amundson, who was in the bathroom that Sunday morning.

"I just remember it was pretty stormy," said Guy Moss, who was a student at Whittell High School at the time. "We were outside for a reason. ... It was low enough that we heard him."

Many agree that pilot Henry Norris thought he was over Lake Tahoe. He turned east when a squall obliterated his view of the airstrip.

Dave Keeler is a former civil air patroller who helped with the recovery. When the plane was still missing, pilots were asked their opinion of what they would do in a similar circumstance, he said.

"We would climb over the lake, the safest place to go when you're blind," Keeler said.

Under the standard procedure, Norris would have followed a signal to Tahoe City, then diverted to Reno. Instead, a faulty compass and altimeter may have put him off course. Strong winds pushed the plane toward the mountains.

"When they made their turn, they didn't realize how strong the winds were," said Bill Schroeder, a civil air patrol pilot and check pilot for Nevada.

Norris almost made it over the peak. Officials calculated that 300 feet higher or 1,000 feet to the east would have been enough to clear the top.

Before a Paradise aircraft would leave San Jose for Tahoe, the operations manager would provide a weather report. If weather was bad, the flight would be delayed. An accidental pen stroke on the weather report, which changed the cloud description to "broken," gave the OK.

Almost a day passed before the wreckage was found. Keeler, observing from a search plane, saw two smoldering seats in the snow.

"Everything was covered with a foot to 18 inches of snow so you didn't have all of that traumatic scene exposed to you," Keeler said.

He said he helped guard the site from people who thought the plane was filled with rich gamblers. A perimeter was made with rope and aluminum cans, which alerted guards of intruders, Keeler said.

Three 600-pound heaters were transported by helicopter to melt the snow and aid excavation.

Accusations of media favoritism by Douglas County Sheriff George Byers surfaced on a Tahoe radio station after a CBS cameraman was allowed access.

The last body found, a San Jose woman, whom Keeler thought was still buckled in her seat, was recovered a month later.

Amundson, whose husband and nephew worked on the recovery, said South Lake Tahoe became crowded with investigators and the curious.

"It was big news," she said. "There were a lot of people for the time. It was one of those tragic things."

Moss said the crash site was visible about 10 years ago, but trees have since shrouded the area. When the snow cleared that summer of 1964, Moss and friends hiked to the peak. Only three wheelbarrows remained, he said, filled with metal and some human possessions, like a pair of shoes.