Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Group, crashed into Inyo National Forest, California, 3 killed, one bailed out. Surveyed at March Field, California, 7 January 1935. This accident resulted in the grounding of all B-12s. Fault traced to wing and aileron flutter and a backlash developed by the props when the engine was shut down. 31 October First prototype Tupolev ANT-40RT suffers engine problems on flight test out of TsAGI (Tsentral'nyy Aerodinamicheskiy i Gidrodinamicheskiy Institut- central aerodynamics and hydrodynamics institute), and pilot K. K. Popov makes a wheels-up forced landing at Khodynka Aerodrome. Repairs take until February 1935. It had made its first flight on 7 October. 5 November Pioneer Air Service aviator Col. Horace Meek Hickam, (1885–1934), dies when his Curtiss A-12 Shrike, 33–250, of the 60th Service Squadron, strikes an obstruction during night landing practice on the unlighted field at Fort Crockett, Texas, overturns. "The field at Fort Crockett, Texas, home of the 3rd Attack Group, was too short. Because of its smallness and the roughness of its southern end, planes landing to the south, even against a light wind, made it a point to touch down between its boundary lights-the field's only lights-just beyond the shallow embankment of its northern threshold. On the evening of November 5, Air Reserve Second Lieutenants Harry N. Renshaw and Andrew N. Wynne were standing on the porch of Group Operations talking to Captain Charles C. Chauncey, the Operations Officer, watching Uncle Horace Hickam shooting night landings in his Curtiss A-12. It was close to eight o'clock as they observed the Colonel coming in for his second touchdown. They realized he was low and was going to undershoot. So did Hickam. He applied power to correct the error and then chopped it off too soon. The watchers saw the A-12's wheels hit the embankment just below its top, saw the plane flipped on its nose, skidding along the ground, the weight of its engine tearing up the turf, and then saw it snap over on its back, slewing completely around. The three men were running toward the aircraft before the sound had died. Wynne arrived first, yelling, "Colonel, are you hurt? Can you hear me?" There was no answer. The cockpit rim was flat on the ground. A group of enlisted men came charging up, followed by the crash truck and an ambulance. Even after Renshaw had driven the cab of the ambulance under