On May 3, 1968, beloved Faye Elaine Combs Brown (1) began making the journey from her home in Galveston, Texas to Tulsa, Oklahoma where she was to meet her brother John Richard Combs Jr., sister-in-law Gay Lynn Combs, and mother and father Willie Faye and John Richard Combs at the airport. Elaine was flying to meet her new-born niece, Tammy. After Elaine didn’t get off her connecting flight from Dallas, her brother and dad were instructed to a back room where it was announced Elaine’s plane had crashed in Dawson, Texas, and it was uncertain if there were any survivors.

Elaine grew up in Baytown, Texas in a family of four. Her mother was a school teacher and her father was a WWII pilot and Air Force colonel. He even survived a mid-air collision. Additionally, her brother was commissioning into the Air Force. He would later fly for more than 13,000 hours, do mission flights during the Vietnam War and fly Air Force 2 (2).

Elaine was intelligent, well-liked and extremely warm. She went to a small college her freshman year and transferred to Texas Tech University where her brother was attending for the Air Force ROTC program. She was an elementary education major (3) and in one of the first member classes of Alpha Delta Pi at Tech (4).

In her sophomore year, Elaine met Dr. Craig Brown (5,6)— a tall, thin medical student. “Toward the end of the course, [my classmate] said a real good friend of hers she wanted me to contact in the fall, so we could go to football,” Brown said, “and so it happened to be Elaine. So I called her that fall, the number that she had given me, and told her, you know out of the blue, somebody’s calling up and saying your friend told us I should call, so that’s, that’s how we met and started going to games and stuff.”

After enjoying years of football games and going to the movies, Craig and Elaine decided to get married right after graduation on June 10, 1967 (7,8). The two moved to Galveston so Craig could begin medical school, and she got her first teaching job that fall at a local Galveston elementary school.

On the afternoon of April 11, 1968, Elaine’s brother and sister-in-law welcomed their first born child into the world— a daughter named Tammy. Craig and Elaine received the baby announcement in the mail a few days later (9,10). “When Elaine made mention, ‘I would just give anything in this world if I could see the baby and John R. and GayLyn before they head for California because I don’t know when I’ll get to see them,’ Nanny and Epop go back, because they were living in Galveston there, so Nanny and Epop go back home, next day they buy two tickets and then take them to Craig and Elaine,” GayLyn said.

Although her parents bought two tickets, Craig was not able to go on the trip to Tulsa to visit the baby because he had an examination during the time of the trip. Elaine was going to have to go alone.

The morning of May 3, 1968, Elaine went to work and taught through the day. Her mother and father insisted on having a limo pick her up from school to drive her to the airport, out of safety rather than style. The limo came, took her to the Houston airport, and Elaine departed for Dallas at 16:11. There were some afternoon thunderstorms moving through Central Texas, typical for that time of year, but it was nothing to be concerned about. Air Traffic Control was deviating planes to the east of the storm, landing them safely and on time.

However, John Phillips— the captain of Braniff flight 352, decided to veer west of the storm claiming there was a hole in the weather. According to the Braniff Aircraft Accident Report, the radio recorded these events in the last few minutes of their journey:

“At 1641:07, The captain made another announcement to the passengers advising them that he was turning on the ‘seat belt’ and ‘no smoking’ signs ‘just in the event it’s a little choppy in the area.’…

At approximately 1646:30, the captain instructed the first officer to ask the controller if he had any reports of hail, which the first officer did at 1646:32. The controller replied, ‘No, you’re the closest one that’s ever come to it yet…I haven’t been able to, anybody to, well I haven’t tried really to get anybody to go through it, they’ve all deviated to the east.’ Following the transmission, the captain advised the first officer, ‘No, don’t talk to him too much. I’m hearing his conversation on this. He’s trying to get us to admit (we’re makin) (we’d made the) (we made a) big mistake coming through here’…”

From here, the captain requests to make a 180 degree turn, either to the left or right, to avoid the storm in which the turn is approved. Phillips begins to make the turn and at 1647:44.01, following the sounds of the landing gear and fire warning horn, the radio recording stops.

This was one of the last times the Braniff Electra aircraft flew. For months, Braniff knew this plane model had a malfunction where the wing would come off during escape maneuvers, but they continued to fly the planes knowing commercial flights were very unlikely to do such maneuvers, except for the case of flight 352.

The plane crashed on farm land (11) about a mile outside of downtown Dawson (12), City Secretary Ronda Franks explained to me. Members of the community flocked to the scene to make sense of the wreckage (13, 14). Fire departments and morticians from Waco, the nearest town, drove around 40 miles to respond to the scene. The Baylor Lariat even covered the tragedy (15).

Photo 13: Photo Courtesy of the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives.

The accident was so horrific that most of the remains were unidentifiable. Recovered body pieces were taken to the Dawson High School gymnasium (16) where families could come to try and claim their loved one. But for Elaine, everyone was still waiting for her in Tulsa.

“Two men came and started asking all kinds of questions, you know, about Elaine and about if she had any scars or where would dental records be found and you know all that kind of stuff,” GayLyn said. “And I know they did the same thing to Craig because I remember him saying they wanted to know what she was wearing that day.”

Someone from Dawson was able to recover Elaine’s purse, wedding ring and the present she bought for baby Tammy. However, they were not able to recover the pearl pendant necklace she wore everyday.

“I remember she had bought Tammy a little rubber elephant, it was probably about eight inches tall,” GayLyn said. “And did you know that they had that, that, it was in her suitcase, and they returned that to Craig and Craig gave it to Nanny and Epop and then they gave it to us for Tammy?”

After body parts were identified, they were put in a coffin and shipped to the family. Anything that couldn’t be identified was buried along the fence line of the Dawson Cemetery (17, 18). Elaine’s coffin was sent to Baytown to be buried at the family plot, but no one looked inside— all too afraid to see what was or wasn’t there (19). The reality is, Elaine probably lies along that Dawson fence line though her grave rests in Baytown, now next to her mother and father.

Photo 19: Photo Courtesy of Kristin Combs.

On the 50th anniversary of the crash, Braniff updated the small memorial (20) that sits beneath a Braniff flag in Dawson City Park by dedicating historical markers with the names of each victim. However, these markers have never actually been put up. A small version of the plaques hang in the City of Dawson government building, where only the small group of council people can see it (21, 22).

Elaine was loved by everyone who knew her. Every single student she taught came to her funeral. She was also a very spiritual person; she read the entire Bible front to back. It is because of her legacy that I get my namesake and honor her story. As for Elaine, my family doesn’t worry too much about her though her name pains our hearts and fills them with lonesome every May. As my Nana (GayLyn) once said, “if anyone’s going to heaven, it’s Elaine.” (23)

Elaine Combs Brown and The Crash of 1968

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