By that time, SS Wilhemina of the Matson Line had almost reached the spot where they had nearly crashed. As of that moment, no one in the world was aware of City of Oakland’s location.

After passing well to the north of Maui, Smith maintained course for Oahu, but off Molokai it became clear that they really were running out of gas this time. Crossing the rough northeast shoreline of that island, Smith steered the sputtering plane toward the beaches along the island’s south side. As a gesture of finality, the two men released the last two pigeons, which were supposed to go to their roost on the Big Island (but, like the pigeons released earlier, they never made it home). During the final moments of the flight, Oahu became dimly visible to the west, but it was painfully obvious that they could not reach Honolulu.

With the engine dying, Smith decided against a dead-stick landing on the beach; the sudden stopping of the wheels in the soft sand might result in a ground loop that could pin the men in the plane as it flipped. The alternative was landing in an extensive thicket of kiawe trees, and Smith aimed for them.

Despite communications and engine problems, City of Oakland made it all the way to the Hawaiian Islands. The flight ended in a crash-landing near Molokai’s leper colony. (National Archives)

The plane was virtually destroyed as it banged into tree after tree before coming to a stop. But since there was no gasoline in the tanks and fuel lines, there was no fire. Miraculously, neither Smith nor Bronte was hurt.

They had brought the plane down near the village of Kaunakakai at 12:16 p.m. Pacific time, 25 hours and 37 minutes after taking off from Oakland. They were about 60 miles short of their goal, Wheeler Field in Honolulu. Maitland and Hegenberger had reached that destination in 25 hours and 43 minutes, and there was clearly no way that Smith and Bronte could have equaled their time by covering that last 60 miles in six minutes. With the plane a complete wreck, the flight was now over except for the formalities.

The people of Kaunakakai alerted authorities on Oahu that the two fliers were alive and well on Molokai. Several Army planes were sent to escort them back to Honolulu, and later that afternoon Smith and Bronte landed at Wheeler Field, where a crowd had gathered to greet them.

The announcement of Smith and Bronte’s safe arrival in the islands was headline news in the San Francisco papers, but their fame was not to last long. Newsmen quickly shifted their attention to the upcoming Dole race. Some officials at first criticized Smith and Bronte for not canceling their distress message, but when it was explained that they had lost their radio antenna, all criticism was withdrawn.

Although the flight is not often cited for its contributions to the development of aviation, there were several features of City of Oakland’s feat that are worthy of note. First, the flight was well-planned, certainly better than that of the PN-9 in 1925 and better than that of most of the entrants in the Dole race, many of whom took risky shortcuts with basic safety precautions, resulting in the loss of three planes. Second, the Travel Air proved to be a good choice for single-engine transoceanic flying. At the end of August, the winner of the Dole race would fly the same type of plane and have a remarkably trouble-free flight.

The Smith-Bronte flight seemed to point out ongoing problems in estimating gasoline consumption for transoceanic flying that needed to be addressed. Two of the first three planes to reach Hawaii from the U.S. mainland — the PN-9 in 1925 and City of Oakland — had run out of gas. It is also possible that some of the planes lost in the Dole race experienced the same problem, even though most of them carried more gasoline than Smith and Bronte. Were the planners ignoring certain features of this type of flight, such as heavy fuel consumption during liftoff when fully loaded, in their computations? Or did aircraft tend to deviate more from a trackline than ships, thus using additional fuel in corrective course adjustments? It is difficult to understand how Smith and Bronte, with 367 gallons of gas, could have run out in 26 1/2 hours instead of the projected 33 hours.

After the ill-fated Dole race, no one would even try to fly the Pacific to Hawaii for almost a decade. In January 1936, when the flight was again attempted successfully, it was made by Amelia Earhart flying solo from west to east. Flying east, of course, is somewhat easier because the landing site to be located is on a continent, not on a cluster of islands.

While several other great transoceanic flights had ended in crashes near their destinations with no loss of life — including the first nonstop transatlantic flight in 1919, when John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown crash-landed their Vimy in an Irish bog — narrow escapes such as Smith and Bronte’s tended to be regarded by the public and the aviation community as only limited successes. Their luster was dimmed because they involved the loss of a plane and also because the fliers failed to reach their final destinations. Perhaps that is why the accomplishments of Smith and Bronte are frequently overlooked today, even in the San Francisco Bay area.

Smith went on to serve as a pilot during the filming of Howard Hughes’ great aviation motion picture Hell’s Angels before working as a pilot for TWA, eventually becoming a vice president of the airline. Bronte had a long career in business with Tidewater Associated Oil in San Francisco and the Brewer interests in Honolulu. He also saw service as a U.S. Navy pilot in World War II.

Although they had been civilians at the time of their Hawaiian flight, both men received the Distinguished Flying Cross. That recognition notwithstanding, Ernie Smith and Emory Bronte remain largely forgotten today.

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This article was written by David H. Grover and originally published in the September 2005 issue of Aviation History. Additional reading: Three-eight Charlie, by Jerrie Mock.

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