At the short-lived Alhambra airport near LA, which cost WAE $2 million to develop according to the press. The terminal was inaugurated in April 1930 and airline operations already ceased one year later. According to ASN this F.10 crashed here on 22 December 1930. Photo from: Smithsonian Institution

Western Air Express was the launch customer for the Fokker F.10, an enlarged F.VII (Roman numerals done away with for the American Fokker types). Fleet number painted as 'No 105' underneath tailplane. Photo by: G Haven Bishop / The Huntington Library

The crash of this F.10 airframe in Kansas one year later accelerated Anthony Fokker's downfall in the USA as one of the eight victims was celebrity football coach Knute Rockne. The Fokker's wooden wing presumably failed due to moisture damage. Western Air Express had by then become part of TWA. Probably as a result of the merger, the brand new airport built by WAE here at Alhambra, near LA, was abandoned. Photo by: G Haven Bishop / The Huntington Library