University of Wyoming
On the morning of October 6, 1955, a United Air Lines DC-4 (UAL Flight 409) en route from New York City to San Francisco with scheduled stops in Denver and Salt Lake City, crashed into a ridge of Medicine Bow Peak (12,013 feet), west of Laramie, killing all 66 passengers and crew members.
When radio contact was lost with the crew, an air search was initiated by the Wyoming Air National Guard. The wreckage was spotted on a ledge high up in the Snowy Range west of Laramie. Rescuers were on the scene by early afternoon, and over the course of approximately one week bodies were recovered, debris was removed, an investigation ensued, and the remaining wreckage was shelled and burned.
This was the worst civil air disaster in U.S. history to that date. Another tragic event occurred less than one month after the Medicine Bow Peak crash when a UAL plane exploded in mid air killing all 44 people on board. Investigators believed a saboteur attempted to mimic the October 6 crash by setting a bomb to detonate when the plane was in the vicinity of Medicine Bow Peak. However, the plane was delayed for a short while at the Denver airport, which led to the bomb detonating south of Medicine Bow Peak near Loveland, Colorado.
The United Air Lines Flight 409 Crash collection contains materials related to the October 6, 1955 crash near Medicine Bow Peak. Collection material covers dates from 1939 to 2001. The collection includes photographs of the crash site, materials describing the rescue effort by several mountaineering clubs including detailed sketches of the pulley system used to lower the bodies off the ledge, newspaper clippings, maps, other written and published accounts, and oral history interviews. These interviews are available in both audio and transcribed formats. A videotape is also included showing the National Guard’s shelling of the mountainside and the use of horses. Other material includes information about the Douglas Company and the DC-4 and written accounts of the November 1, 1955, UAL crash south of Laramie, near Loveland, Colorado.
There are no access restrictions on the materials for research purposes, and the collection is open to the public.
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There are no other known archival collections created about the United Air Lines Flight 409 crash at the date of processing.
The materials that make up the United Airlines Flight 409 Crash collection were donated to the American Heritage Center between 1996 and 2024.
Materials were donated by
The collection was processed by John Richard Waggener in December 2001 and updated by Jamie Greene in September 2016, March 2017, and April 2024 and Brittany Heye in February 2026.
The oral histories were digitized in 2006.
The video was digitized by Kathy Gerlach in August 2014.
Item Description, Box Number, Folder Number, United Air Lines Flight 409 Crash collection, 1939-2001, Collection Number 10494, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
Digital reproductions of select material from this collection are available at
Arranged by topic concerning the crash, eyewitness accounts, and aftermath. Series also includes video and audio tapes.
(of crash site and rescue effort)
(Includes sketches of pulley system used to lower bodies.)
(Includes news clippings and the Morton Report.)
(Includes copy of official report as well as other written accounts.)
(Includes letters from UAL as well as published accounts of crash.)
(Conducted in 1996 with people involved in the rescue effort.)
(various local and regional papers)
(local, regional, and national papers)
(local and regional accounts)
(Includes news clippings and photographs of August 25, 2001 Dedication.)
1955
(full-page, multi-page write-ups)
Contains information about Douglas Co. and the DC-4.
(Includes a 1939 news clipping and photo copies from a 1995 book about the history of Douglas and its planes.)
Contains information about a mid-air bomb explosion of a UAL DC-6 near Loveland, Colorado.
(Newspaper clipping and type written account of crash that may have been linked to the Medicine Bow crash.)