Captain Emilio Carranza

Crash and discovery

Carranza departed secretly despite severe electrical weather. The contemporary report attributed the crash to lightning, but that was the newspaper’s interpretation rather than a demonstrated forensic conclusion. John Carr, 26, a Pemberton truck driver and woodsman, found fragments while picking huckleberries with his wife Marie, 24, and mother Mary, 52. They located the fuselage and Carranza’s body about sixty feet apart, then notified Burlington County authorities. Debris was scattered across roughly three-quarters of a mile.

County Detective Arthur Carabine identified the victim through papers, including a U.S. Weather Bureau telegram addressed to Carranza at Roosevelt Field. The message warned of unsettled conditions and contained routing information via Washington, New Orleans, and Galveston. His belongings also included two tickets to a Thursday Madison Square Garden fight and a three-page Spanish letter dated July 12 from New York friends. Burlington County Judge William Slaughter translated only part of it.

Public response and background

The wreckage went to the Company M, 114th Infantry armory. Hundreds gathered outside M. K. Perinchief’s Mount Holly funeral rooms. Mount Holly American Legion commander Leon Fryor led a tribute, and officers came from Camp Dix and Long Island fields. President Plutarco Elías Calles and U.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow issued condolences. Carranza was a nephew of former Mexican president Venustiano Carranza and had recently married.

He attended West Texas Military Academy, entered the Mexican Aviation School in 1925, and first flew in June 1926. Reported achievements included St. Louis–Monterrey, Mexico City–Juárez, San Diego–Mexico City in about 18½ hours, and the June 17, 1928 nonstop goodwill flight from Mexico City to Washington, made in response to Charles Lindbergh’s visit.

Later discoveries

An August 31 report says Chatsworth berry pickers Francis Estilow and Horace Adams found more wreckage about two miles south of the body site: the smashed cockpit, coat, vest, pencil, fountain pen, and a gold illuminated-dial watch stopped at 9:10. They sent the articles to Mexican consul general Arturo Elias in New York. The stopped watch was treated as evidence of the crash time, though stopping could have another cause.

A memorial with a disputed date

The crash became a continuing international commemoration. The state’s interpretive marker says Mexican schoolchildren financed stone quarried in Coahuila for a 1931 monument, with blocks representing Mexican states. Its descending eagle and footprints represent Carranza’s final descent and passage on earth; the upward arrow represents the continuation of his mission. Photographed New Jersey parks interpretive marker.

The monument’s own inscription gives July 13, 1928 as the death date. Aviation writer Dennis K. Johnson points out that the evening takeoff and short distance flown favor a July 12 crash. July 13 was the day of discovery. Preserving this discrepancy explains why otherwise careful retellings disagree, without treating an inscription as an accident investigation. AOPA, “The Mexican Lindbergh,” September 15, 2021.