March 13, 1974

  Fifty years ago on this day THE EXECUTION of PRIVATE SLOVIK was broadcast.

 That same evening a Sierra Pacific Airlines slammed into a ridge near Bishop, California, killing all aboard. Most of the dead were cast and crew members of producer David Wolper's PRIMAL MAN specials who'd just finished shooting an episode entitled "The Struggle For Survival" which was unscathed and later broadcast in the early summer of that year... 
 Note the intact tail section:

                                                                      

 To my knowledge, the incident remains one of only three unidentified causes of airplane crashes since the NTSB was established.