The making of this film ended in appalling tragedy: On January 2, 1930, at Santa Monica, with the film already completed, director
Kenneth Hawks embarked on a series of retakes for a flying scene with which he was dissatisfied. The scene was to have been based off the disappearance of Alfred Loewenstein, a Belgian financier, from a plane crossing the English Channel on July 4, 1928. Two airplanes carrying the film crew to photograph a third that features in the film collided in the air, burst into flame, and hurtled into the Pacific Ocean off the Southern California coast below. Ten people were killed in the accident, including director Hawkes, along with assistant director
Max Gold and four cameramen -
George Eastman,
C. Otho Jordan,
Conrad Wells, and
Ben Frankel - as well as two property men, and the two pilots. A third pilot,
Roscoe Turner, two other crew members, and the stunt performer designated to do the parachute jump doubling for the lead character were unharmed in the accident, as they were directly below the collision and swerved a safe distance away from the burning flames resulting from the crash. Three bodies were hurled out of the planes and into the sea below.
Hoot Gibson witnessed the crash from on the shore, and Turner saw the crash from his plane. Turner, who was good friends with Hawks, reportedly "cried like a child" in the aftermath of the accident, and claimed that his only explanation was that one or both of the pilots had been blinded for a moment by the glare of the sun, which might have caused the fatal collision. Hawks' brother, Howard, was going to board the plane with him, but backed out at the last second on a "whim". An excessive search for the bodies was conducted; only five were recovered. Kenneth Hawks was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the site of his death.
