July 7th, 1946; The first prototype XF-11, piloted by Howard Hughes, crashed while on its maiden flight from the Hughes Aircraft Co. factory airfield at Culver City, California.

Hughes did not follow the agreed testing program and communications protocol and remained airborne twice as long as planned. An hour into the flight, a hydraulic fluid leak caused the rear propeller to subsequently reverse its pitch in flight, causing the aircraft to yaw hard to the right. Mr. Hughes maintained full power of the right engine and reduced that of the left engine instead of trying to fly with the right propeller windmilling without power. The crash was attributed to pilot error.”

Rather than feathering the prop, Hughes performed improvised troubleshooting, which included raising and lowering the gear, during which he flew away from his factory runway. Constantly losing altitude, not willing to bail out over a populated area, and hoping to save his multimillion-dollar airplane, he finally attempted to reach the golf course of the Los Angeles Country Club.

Still, about 300 yards short of the course, the aircraft bled airspeed, lost altitude and clipped three houses. The third house was destroyed by fire, nearly killing Hughes. Remarkably, he pulled through, although he was given large amounts of morphine for his pain. Many believe this started Hughes on the road to his later pharmaceutical addictions.

“I’m not a paranoid, deranged millionaire. Goddamit, I’m a billionaire.”
Howard Hughes