Northrop C-19 Alpha

The Northrop C-19 Alpha was a small series of three aircraft that the United States Army Air Corps bought from Northrop in 1931 for evaluation. They were slightly modified versions of the civil Northrop Alpha Type 2: the first, designated YC-19, had been an Alpha 4, and the other two were Y1C-19 aircraft with a Pratt and Whitney R-1340-11 engine. The main difference from the airliner was the load, since the civil version carried a pilot and six passengers while the Army version carried a pilot and four passengers. No production order followed. One aircraft crashed near Petersburg, Virginia in March 1933, killing its pilot and two passengers, and the others served for several more years before being passed to training schools as subjects for maintenance and repair classes.