and Maywood Air Mail Field. The route would not come to pass, however. A few weeks after a successful placement in the 1927 National Air Races, Yackey was finishing up testing on the winning plane before it was transferred to its new owner, Ed Campbell, who was a passenger on the cross-country race. Yackey was a noted advocate for airline safety, and insisted on personally testing every plane he built before final sale. On October 4, 1927, Yackey took the plane out for one more rigorous test flight over the air fields, despite it having been tested and proven in service. According to mechanic Henry Johnson, a noted weakness in the right wing prompted him to install a new iron bracing for support. In mid-flight, this bracing failed, causing the wing to buckle during a steep turn. Yackey immediately lost control of the plane, plunging him 500 feet from the air into the ground, where the plane exploded. Newspaper reports from around the Midwest described Yackey's death in gruesome detail, that his body was crushed and then burned beyond recognition in the wreckage. The noise of the airplane breaking up in mid-air alerted local firefighters, who observed the plane come down. Yackey's body was claimed by his brother Carl F. Yackey and brother-in-law Walter Koken, and taken back to St. Louis, MO. His body is interred at Bellafontaine Cemetery in St. Louis City. In the months after Yackey's death, the Government Civil Aviation Board would declare that Checker Aviation Field was unsafe for either private or commercial airline usage, and moved to have the property condemned. Today the former airfield is preserved as a meadow, with granite marker commemorating the foundation and history of the facilities. Personal life Yackey was the third of five children. His father, Wilfred A. Yackey, Sr., was a secretary at St. Louis Cooperage Company when he died. In 1921 Yackey married Olive R. Koken. The couple had no children. Yackey was named a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1925. References Bibliography Glenview Pioneer Press. 16 May 2001. p. 5, 9. 1890 births 1927 deaths 1927 in aviation American aviators Aviation history of the United States Aviation pioneers Aviators from Illinois American air racers American flight instructors American World War I pilots Recipients of the Croix de Guerre (France) People from St. Louis People from Maywood, Illinois United States airmail pilots Aviators killed in