[2] Intrigued by her visit to the cockpit, she began taking flying lessons at the age of 15, and was issued a private pilot license shortly after she turned 17.

In the first, she was forced to make a crash landing in the California desert on January 9, 1965, when the heater in the nose of City of Long Beach caught fire; she and her companion sustained minor injuries.

[3] On February 17, 1965, an uncharacteristic catastrophic in flight break up of the Cessna 182 aircraft that she was piloting out of Long Beach Airport occurred on a clear day with calm surface winds of 6 knots at approximately 8,200 feet Msl.

Every control surface on the aircraft failed except the vertical fin and rudder and it crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains near Big Pines, California, killing Smith along with her biographer and fellow pilot Beatrice Ann “Trixie” Schubert.

[4][5] She posthumously received the Harmon Trophy for Outstanding Aviatrix of 1964,[6] which was announced by Vice President Hubert Humphrey at the White House.