May 14, 1921
Receipt of a letter here by Miss Katherine Cunningham, which was damaged in an air plane wreck in Wyoming, has turned local interest toward the pending quiz at Chicago of the air mail service. A similar damaged letter was received in Grand Rapids this week by the American Public Utilities Co., from the Utah Gas and Coke Co., photographs of the letter appearing in the papers of that city. The Cadillac letter was sent by Alfred Cunningham of Salt Lake City. Both were sent on by the Cheyenne postmaster with a notation that they were salvaged from the plane fire at Rock Springs, Wyoming, May 5. Walter M. Bunting of Camden, New Jersey, was the aviator, and he was burned to death when his plane turned over and fell just as he was taking the air for Cheyenne. He was 26 years old and had suffered an injury at Omaha, Nebraska, last December when he had another fall. "Gross mismanagement, inefficiency and criminal negligence" are blamed by witnesses at the Chicago investigation of the postal plane scandal for the death of 13 mail aviators.