Highway 450

A small wooden sign marks the site where Ernest Smith and Emory Bronte safely crashed their airplane after making the first civilian trans-Pacific flight on July 15, 1927. Their final destination was Honolulu, but the plane was almost out of fuel so they stall-landed in a kiawe thicket 100 miles short of their goal.

Smith was a airmail pilot and Bronte was his navigator. They took off from Oakland field in a 27-foot long monoplane called City of Oakland. The flight took 26 hours and 36 minutes and they crossed 2,200 miles of ocean.

DIRECTIONS:
Located on the ocean side of Highway 450 just before mile marker #12.