Douglas DC-1

The Douglas DC-1 was the first of the Douglas Commercial airliners and was built as a single aircraft. Douglas designed it for Transcontinental and Western Air, which wanted an all-metal transport after the 1931 crash of a Fokker trimotor with a wooden wing led regulators to restrict wooden wings on passenger airliners. The result was a low-wing, twin-engined monoplane with a crew of two and seats for twelve passengers, able to take off and fly safely on one engine. It first flew on July 1, 1933, and in February 1934 it crossed the United States in a record 13 hours 5 minutes. TWA ordered twenty of the developed DC-2, and the DC-1 itself ended its days in Spain, where it was wrecked in a forced landing in 1940.