Oregon Aviation Historical Society

11/11/2025

10/06/2025

https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2025/10/01/oldest-planes-in-the-world-that-are-still-flying/

The continued evolution in aviation has offered the world a convenient way to explore the world today. Here are the 10 oldest airplanes that are still flying in the sky around the world.

04/02/2025

During the months of May and June, Oregon Aviation Historical Society will be doing renovations on the museum and are in need of volunteers. Will be refinishing the concrete floor, painting the walls and display cases, rearranging the displays and moving airplanes. Since heavy equipment will be involved only those 18 years or older will be able to help. If you would like to volunteer please email us at Oregon [email protected] for further information.

02/04/2025

Part 2 - Canyonville Pacific Air Transport Crash

Ninety-six years ago, mailplane #5339 plunged into the treetops over southern Oregon and burned, only to have its engine ripped out by a salvage team and then fall prey to the townspeople who pilfered its remains and amputated its tail. Steeped in mountain fog and wet Northwest weather for six decades, the Boeing 40C eroded until its remnants, looking like twisted bones of a great, primitive biplane, were scooped from the Willamette Valley and cached in a horse trailer in the backyard of a member of Oregon Aviation Historical Society.

Addison Pemberton, an engineer from Spokane, Washington, has been interested in restoring a Boeing 40 after seeing one at the Henry Ford Museum. He researched the fates of all 81 Model 40s built and in 1982 began a two-year hunt for the #5339's hulk. As luck would have it, an article printed in 1999, led him to the OAHS member and they struck a deal. He traded the society a propeller and $5,000 for the parts and promised to restore #5339 to its original livery and exhibit it to the public.

Though Pemberton had restored 18 aircraft, none had been as ravaged as the #5339. Perhaps only 50 original pieces were to be absorbed into a 30,000 part aircraft, making the effort more a cloning than a restoration. His projected budget for the project was $100,000. It will be the only airplane of its type flying. The Boeing 40C again took flight on February 17, 2007, for the first time since it crashed.

12/30/2024

On the morning of October 2nd 1928, Pacific Air Transport pilot, Grant Donaldson, approached the Canyon Creek Pass with low clouds hanging over the mountains. As an air mail pilot, he knew he had a difficult decision to make.
The dilemma facing the pilot was further complicated by the presence of a passenger seated in the enclosed cabin along with the mail sacks of the Boeing 40-C mail plane. The decision was made. He entered Canyon Creek canyon at the pass, flying the big plane in the narrow space between the treetops below and the low clouds and fog above. As he approached the Pioneer Bridge two and a half miles from the pass, it happened.
The following information is taken from the Roseburg News-Release:
A Pacific Air Transport Company plane flying from Medford to Portland, crashed this morning on the summit of Canyon Mountain, 9 miles south of Canyonville seriously injuring the pilot. A passenger, said to be DP Donovan of Los Angeles, was reported to be missing.
Despite his serious injuries the pilot made his way to the highway about a hundred yards away where he was picked up in a semi-conscious condition. Reverend HC Messerli, a Lutheran Minister from Albany, who, with his wife and two children, on the way home from a trip to Michigan, was nearing Pioneer Bridge from the south at the time of the wreck and heard the crash as the machine struck the hillside. He came down to the bridge and heard someone calling out and saw the pilot running out of the brush. The family took the pilot to Canyonville and stopped at a drug store and a doctor Patterson was called to treat him. They said they would get an ambulance from Roseburg and so they went on.
A report was immediately sent to the Pacific Air Transport Company and an answer received at once requested news of the passenger from Los Angeles. Information received from Portland was to the effect that LG Hubble, division superintendent of the Pacific Air Transport Company, left Vancouver, Washington, for Roseburg immediately after being notified of the accident.
Searchers for the wrecked plane reported to Canyonville that the fog was so dense at 1:00 that they had not been able to find the wreckage and had secured no trace of the passenger, who, it was reported, might have been killed in the crash.
The plane was finally discovered by the fact it had mowed the tops from several large trees before it crashed on the hillside. Noticing the broken treetops searchers made their way to the spot where they found the wrecked plane and the body of the passenger in the burned out cabin. The pilot survived his injuries.
Pacific Air Transport inaugurated airmail service between Seattle and Los Angeles in September, 1926. At the time of the Canyonville crash, the company had experienced at least three other mail plane accidents. It was being operated as a division of Boeing Air Transport and eventually became part of United Airlines in 1934.
Most of the wreckage at the crash site has long since vanished however Oregon Aviation Historical Society is fortunate enough to have some parts of the wreckage on display. The crash remains an interesting, but little-known event in the early history of the US airmail service and the Umpqua region.

Next time.. the restoration of the plane and putting it back into flight after almost 80 years.