United Airlines Flight 629 was using a Douglas DC-6B airliner (named "Mainliner Denver") piloted by World War II veteran Lee Hall on the evening of November 1, 1955. The flight had originated at New York City's LaGuardia Airport, making a stop in Chicago before continuing to Denver; it then took off from Denver, Colorado's Stapleton Airfield, bound for Portland, Oregon, with continuing service to Seattle. Minutes after the plane's departure from Denver, the DC-6B exploded and the flaming wreckage fell to earth over tracts of farmland and sugar beet fields near Longmont, Colorado. There were no survivors.