On October 24, 1947, Captain Everett L. McMillan of United Flight 608 radioed, "Tail is going out. We may get down... and we may not," as he tried to guide his flaming, disintegrating DC-6 to Bryce Canyon Airport for an emergency landing. Moments later, the plane, carrying 47 passengers and 6 crew members, crashed in Bryce Canyon National Park 1.5 miles short of the runway, and although local residents rushed to help, there were no survivors. In the weeks after the crash, investigators collected thousands of charred pieces and reconstructed the wreckage, the first time in aviation history that a plane was rebuilt to determine the cause of an accident. While that work was underway, another DC-6 caught fire in flight on November 11, 1947, but landed quickly without casualties. By studying that aircraft and the remains of Flight 608, investigators found that after a routine mid-air fuel transfer, the overfilled number 3 fuel tank leaked through its air vent, fuel entered the cabin heating system intake, and it ignited. The discovery exposed a critical design flaw, leading to the grounding and repair of the entire fleet of 80 DC-6 planes, including President Truman's plane, "The Independence." Reconstructing aircraft wreckage later became standard procedure in airline crash investigations. A much happier outcome came on October 6, 2000, when American Airlines Flight 2821 from Denver to Los Angeles reported cockpit smoke and loss of cabin pressure at 33,000 feet, diverted to Bryce Canyon Airport, and landed safely with all 75 people aboard.