Helicopter Tragedies

In 1968 alone, the Disneyland/LAX helicopter service suffered two of the worst civilian chopper crashes in U.S. history. In May, a helicopter carrying 23 people lucky enough to leave the park alive disintegrated in mid-air and crashed near Paramount. There were no survivors. Less than three months later, a Disneyland-bound chopper crashed on a Compton playground, killing all 21 would-be "guests" and crew on board.The type of helicopter involved in both crashes was the Sikorsky S-61, operated by Los Angeles Airways, which had regular passenger service between Los Angeles International Airport and the Disneyland/Anaheim heliport.

The first crash occurred on May 22, 1968, when N303Y was en route from Disneyland to LAX. At about 550 PM, Flight 841 was flying at about 2,000 feet near Paramount when a distress message was received from the helicopter "L.A., we're crashing, help us!" All 20 passengers and the crew of 3 were killed. It was later determined that a mechanical failure in the main rotor hub allowed extreme lead-lag excursions of the rotor blades, one of which became detached from the swashplate and struck the helicopter's fuselage as it was descending through about 600 feet. This caused the other four rotor blades to go out of control, and in short order all five blades broke and the rear fuselage and tail rotor pylon separated from the aircraft.

The second crash, on August 14, 1968, involved N300Y, operating as Flight 417 from LAX to Anaheim. This time, the helicopter was flying at about 1,500 feet around 1035 AM when one of the main rotor head spindles failed and the attached rotor blade separated completely. The resulting imbalance sent the helicopter out of control and it crashed in Leuders Park, killing all 18 passengers and 3 crew. The spindle failure was caused by metal fatigue.

Newspaper photo of the helicopter crash

Newspaper photos detailing the gruesome details

Newspaper Article - Article from May, 1968

Article from August, 1968

Arriving Helicopter - Landing at the Disneyland Hotel Heliport

Loading Passengers - The Helicopter terminal at the Disneyland Hotel station

In Flight - The Heliport accross the street from the Disneyland Hotel

Helicopter Taking Off - The fence for the driving range can be seen in the background

LAA Airways Overhead - Leaving the Heliport at the Disneyland Hotel

New Photos on the Blog

Just wanted to add some new photos tonight at the request of Walterworld. I've said many times, if I know people like these, I will continue to post. Tanks WW for posting comments and requesting more posts. It's nice to feel wanted!!! :)

Publicity Shot

Dancing Waters late 80's publicity photo

1955 Disneyland Hotel Opening

The plans called for the Disneyland Hotel to be opened as close to the opening of Disneyland (mid-July 1955) as possible. As these articles indicate, due to labor strikes and the massive headcount needed to build Disneyland, the project was delayed until early October. Even then, it opened with only seven rooms with an eighth used as the registration office. This very early facility had almost no amenities either. An old ranch house on the property was converted to the first restaurant on the grounds and was called the Little Gourmet. It wasn't until mid 1956 that the Hotel was able to offer the many restaurants, shops and facilities to its guests and become a full-service facility.

Labor Contract Details - Part of the reason why the Disneyland Hotel was delayed by at least two months in opening. This article was dated September 18th, 1955.

The Disneyland Hotel was delayed in opening by severla months. This article details why......not enough skilled workers available due to the amount of work still ongoing at Disneyland. This article was dated August 2nd, 1955.

Personal Photos

One of the most fun finds are personal photographs from the Disneyland Hotel. Either finding them on Ebay or having someone send them to me, it's always nice to view (and share) someone's own personal photos of the original Disneyland Hotel. They often times show views not normally seen as is the case here with the other side of the lobby shot presented here. I have never seen another photograph with this view. Hope you like these.....I have more!

Personal Photo 1957 - Love those exposed girders and 50's architecture

Personal Grounds Photo 1957 - Olympic size pool not too terribly long after it had first opened

Guest structure and tropical setting

Front shot of original Disneyland Hotel Lobby Building

Guest structure with lush lanscaping in the foreground

Rare view from the back of the original Hotel lobby

Vast landscaping on the grounds

Magnolia & Embassy Rooms

On the second floor above the Gourmet was located a banquet area that could serve parties ranging from twenty-five to five-hundred. On October 28, 1956, Disneyland Cast Members would hold their Halloween Masquerade Ball in the banquet room. Within a few years, this area had been expanded and could be divided into four different meeting rooms. By the early 1960's, it had become known as the Magnolia Room.

Built above the Hotel's shops near the main entrance on West Street, a 13,000 square foot convention and exhibition center was added. The convention hall became Orange County's first ballroom, the Embassy Room. [The original banquet hall (just to the south of the Embassy Room) would be redesigned and named the Magnolia Room.] It was able to accommodate more than 1,400 guests in a theatre seating formation and 1,200 guests for a banquet. Its "official" opening took place on November 28, 1961.

1969 Hotel Convention Brochure The Beautiful Embassy Room

1969 Hotel Convention Brochure

1969 Hotel Convention Brochure

1969 Convention Brochure

1969 Hotel Convention Brochure

Location of Embassy and Magnolia Rooms on the grounds of the Disneyland Hotel - 1969 Hotel Convention Brochure. You would step down and outside of the building to get from one facility to the other.

1963 Hotel Brochure

Floorplans Magnolia Embassy Rooms - 1969 Convention Brochure

Floorplans Magnolia and Embassy Rooms - 1963 Hotel Cenvention Brochure

Late in the tenure of the Wrather ownership

After Jack Wrather passed away in late 1984, the Wrather family restructured and attempted to keep the company afloat. It was also at this time that Michael Eisner took over as CEO at Disney and made it a priority to bring the Disneyland Hotel into Disney ownership. Chris Wrather took over as CEO and Bonita Wrather became Chairman of the Board at Wrather Corporation. Disney began to pressure the Wrather's to sell which they eventually did in 1989. This brochure is one of the last while the Hotel was still a Wrather property. It was used in 1987 and 1988.

1987 Brochure - Cover of the brochure from the Disneyland Hotel in 1987

This was at the start of the negotiations between Disney and Wrather

Plenty of activities

Some amenities at the Hotel near the end of the Wrather tenure

Magnolia Embassy Rooms 1969

At the request of a blog reader, I have included a close-up from the 1969 convention brochure of the Magnolia and Embassy rooms location on the Hotel grounds.

Room Updates Mid 1965

The Disneyland Hotel Check-In Magazine (1965-1974) was the free publication given to registering Hotel guests at check-in time. These magazines are an invaluable source of information from the Hotel's rich history. You can always find interesting tidbits of information contained within them about some detail going on at the Disneyland Hotel. This particular issue details a complete room refurbishment to the original Garden Rooms where over $400,000 will be spent. I was fortunate to have access to Disney's collection of Check-In magazines at the studio archives. They have almost every issue published and I believe I have the second most complete collection. Many articles were used as human nature stories in our book Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years 1954-1988 http://www.magicalhotel.com. I will do a feature on these Check-In magazines shortly.

Disneyland Hotel Check-In Magazine April-May 1965

Room Refurbishment 1965 - Details of the updates to the Garden Rooms

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Close Up of Text - Had a request to post a close-up of the text section from the latest posting. Here you go!

Jack Wrather Pondering

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jack Wrather. I wonder what he was thinking? I found this photo at the Wrather archives.