Content Warning: The source material features graphic depictions of death and references to suicide. Additionally, the source material references offensive terms for Latino people.

Chapter 1 is a moment-by-moment description of what witnesses in Los Gatos Canyon in the Central Valley of California saw on January 28, 1948. On that day, a plane full of a number of Mexican “deportees” crashed and all passengers and crew were killed. Tim Z. Hernandez describes the events in historical narrative form, with direct quotes from witnesses or their surviving relatives and from newspaper accounts.

The witness accounts begin at 10:40 am. An old man named Red sees a fire and runs toward it. He can hear the screams of people and smells burnt flesh. His granddaughter June shares her recollections of what he told her about the site. Soon afterward, convicts from the Fresno County Road Camp, the warden, and two deputies, arrive. They give Red a shovel and the men begin to try putting out the fire by shoveling dirt onto it. Then, the local school bus driver and Red’s son-in-law, “Happy” Gaston, arrives in the school bus and begins to help. More people arrive, including other locals and government officials.