of wreckage on a farm near here today as a result of the first air mishap in Ohio as the army prepared to take over operation of the airmail service. Lost in a snowstorm while en route to take up his new assignment at Columbus, the pilot, Lieut, J. H. Gibson, was forced to 'bail out' when his gasoline supply ran low. He landed safely a mile and a half from the spot where his plane crashed." 20 February Lieutenant John C. Crosthwaite, on the first U.S. Army airmail flight between San Francisco and Salt Lake City, is forced down by a local storm at Sacramento, California. The next flight is cancelled. "The plane carrying the southern mail to Newark got as far as Washington at 2:40 a. m., where it was grounded by bad weather." 22 February Lieutenant Durwood O. Lowry, of the 17th Pursuit Squadron, 1st Pursuit Group, is killed in the crash of an Air Corps Curtiss O-39 Falcon, 32-216, whilst carrying the U.S. Mail, near Deshler, Ohio. His mother, Mrs. Dorothy Lowry Reisdorf, of Detroit, was quoted by the Associated Press, stating, "Good as they are, these Selfridge Field fliers shouldn't have to fly at night through winter storms over unfamiliar courses that it took months for commercial pilots to learn."Associated Press, "Pilots Crash Carrying Mail – Four Army Fliers Killed, Several Injured in Their New Task", The Columbia Record, Columbia, South Carolina, Friday 23 February 1934, Volume XXXVII, Number 261, page 1. Lowry's plane, carrying a capacity load (358 pounds of mail) on the Chicago-Toledo route, came down far off its course, in a snowstorm. The observation plane nose-dived into some woods, but Lowry managed to "throw some of his mail free before the crash." His plane was demolished and the mail bags were scattered for some distance behind the place at which the wrecked machine came to rest. "Lowry's body was torn to bits. He apparently had attempted to bail out, but a knot in the parachute cord is believed to have caught in a part of the plane and trapped him. Marks in the woods showed that the plane struck the ground, went forward some distance due to its momentum, and then nosed into the bank of a creek in the woods. The plane was demolished. Residents of the vicinity said Lowry apparently had trouble with his motor and had circled in a