1957
In 1957, Club Primadonna chartered passengers to and from San Francisco to the Reno, Nevada casino on “champagne tours.”
On the September 28 return flight, delayed from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. due to bad weather, the plane’s engines failed near the San Francisco International Airport. The pilot shouted, “Fasten your belts, loosen your collars. We’re going to ditch this thing” (Nevada State Journal, Sept. 28, 1957).
He crash landed the aircraft in the bay’s mudflats. From the marshy area, U.S. Coast Guard members retrieved all eight people aboard, all of whom survived.
