It was broad, bright daylight—no time for alarm, let alone tragedy. Yet radio receivers in United Air Lines offices at Salt Lake City, Denver and San Francisco crackled out a message pregnant with fear: "United 608 sending blind [i.e., calling any station because of emergency]. We have baggage afire aboard this airplane. We are going into Bryce. Don't know if the fire is out yet. We have a smoke-filled airplane."
Flight 608 was a giant four-motored DC-6 which had taken off from Los Angeles at 9:23 a.m., two hours before, bound for New...