On January 28, 1948, a DC-3 aircraft operated by Airline Transport Carriers with 32 persons on board, mostly Mexican farm laborers, including some from the bracero guest worker program, crashed in the Diablo Range, 20 miles west of Coalinga, California, killing all passengers and crew.

[3] At approximately 10:30am, workers at the Fresno County Industrial Road Camp, located 21 mi (34 km) northwest of Coalinga, California, noticed the DC-3 trailing white smoke from its port engine.

When Guthrie's poem was set to music a decade later by college student Martin Hoffman, it became the folk song "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)".

[1] The song was popularized by Pete Seeger,[7] and was subsequently performed by Arlo Guthrie[8] Joan Baez,[9] Judy Collins,[10] Julie Felix, Cisco Houston,[11] Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Kelly, Martyn Joseph, The Byrds, Richard Shindell and Ani DiFranco among others.

[13] With the help of others, by July 2013 all had been identified (some of the names were misspelled in the records), and the money raised for a more fitting memorial.