relating to the fanciful notion that carole lombards plane was shot down by nazi sympathizers.

Welles was guilty of letting a good story get in the way of truth.

In a classic case of pilot error, the pilots and navigator of Lombard's plane errantly filed a 218 degree heading for Burbank which was the normal approach if taking off from Boulder (something the crew did often) but unfortunately they were taking off from Las Vegas and that heading took them straight into an 8,000 foot mountain.

If Nazi agents indeed were hoping to intercept TWA Flight 3 that night they would have needed to look for an intercept point along a 212 degree heading which was the normal approach route from Las Vegas to Burbank and as such it is hard to believe that by luck they guessed the errant heading of the flight which had they done the math meant that the plane was doomed to fly straight into the mountainside.