Question: Eastern Air Lines Flight 21, registration NC28394, was a Douglas DC-3 aircraft that crashed while preparing to land at Candler Field, among the injured was which American fighter ace in World War I and Medal of Honor recipient?
Context: Eastern Air Lines Flight 21, registration NC28394, was a Douglas DC-3 aircraft that crashed while preparing to land at Candler Field (now Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport) in Atlanta, Georgia, on February 26, 1941.  Eight of the 16 on board were killed including Maryland Congressman William D. Byron.  Among the injured was Eastern Air Lines president and World War I hero Eddie Rickenbacker. Edward Vernon Rickenbacker (October 8, 1890 – July 23, 1973) was an American fighter ace in World War I and Medal of Honor recipient.  With 26 aerial victories, he was America's most successful fighter ace in the war.  He was also considered to have won the most awards for valor by an American during the war according to the April 2017 VFW magazine in their special World War I edition. Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 was an Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-9-31, carrying 78 passengers and four crew, operating as a scheduled flight within the United States from Charleston, South Carolina to Chicago, Illinois, with an intermediate stop in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Sterile Cockpit Rule is an FAA regulation requiring pilots to refrain from non-essential activities during critical phases of flight, normally below 10,000 feet (3048 meters).  The FAA imposed the rule in 1981 after reviewing a series of accidents that were caused by flight crews who were distracted from their flying duties by engaging in non-essential conversations and activities during critical parts of the flight.  One such notable accident was Eastern Air Lines Flight 212, which crashed just short of the runway at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in 1974 while conducting an instrument approach in dense fog.  The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that a probable cause of the accident was distraction due to idle chatter among the flight crew during the approach phase of the flight.  Similar is the case of Colgan Air Flight 3407 in 2009. On Sunday 10 March 1946 a Douglas DC-3 aircraft departed from Hobart, Tasmania for a flight to Melbourne.  The aircraft crashed into the sea with both engines operating less than 2 minutes after takeoff.  All twenty-five people on board the aircraft died.  It was Australia's worst civil aviation accident. The 1949 Manchester BEA Douglas DC-3 accident occurred when a twin-engined British European Airways Douglas DC-3 (registration: G-AHCY) crashed on Saddleworth Moor in the Pennines near Oldham, Lancashire, after a flight from Belfast.  The accident killed 24 of the passengers and crew on board.  The aircraft had first flown in 1944, and was captained by F. W. Pinkerton, a former RAF serviceman who, as a sergeant, had been posted missing during World War II.  The airline was government-owned. Eastern Air Lines Flight 537, registration N88727, was a Douglas DC-4 aircraft en route from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. via intermediate points on November 1, 1949.  NX-26927 was a Lockheed P-38 Lightning being test-flown for acceptance by the Government of Bolivia by Erick Rios Bridoux of the Bolivian Air Force.  The two aircraft collided in mid-air at an altitude of 300 feet about half a mile southwest of the threshold of Runway 3 at Washington National Airport, killing all 55 aboard the DC-4 and seriously injuring the pilot of the P-38.  At the time it was the deadliest airliner incident in United States history. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar jet that crashed into the Florida Everglades at 11:42 pm December 29, 1972, causing 101 fatalities.  All three pilots, two of 10 flight attendants, and 96 of 163 passengers died, while 75 passengers and crew survived.  The crash occurred while the entire flight crew was preoccupied with a burnt-out landing gear indicator light.  They failed to notice that the autopilot had inadvertently been disconnected and, as a result, the aircraft gradually lost altitude and crashed.  It was the first crash of a widebody aircraft and at the time, the second-deadliest single-aircraft disaster in the United States. Richard Ira Bong (September 24, 1920 – August 6, 1945) was a United States Army Air Forces major and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II.  He was one of the most decorated American fighter pilots and the country's highest-scoring flying ace in the war, being credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft.  All of his aerial victories were in the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter.  He died in California while testing a jet aircraft shortly before the Japanese surrendered and the war ended. United Airlines Flight 608 was a Douglas DC-6 airliner, registration NC37510, on a scheduled passenger flight from Los Angeles to Chicago when it crashed at 12:29 pm on October 24, 1947 about 1.5 miles southeast of Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah.  There were no survivors among the 5 crew members and 47 passengers on board.  It was the first crash of a DC-6, and at the time it was the second deadliest air crash in the United States, surpassed by Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 by only one fatality.
Answer: Edward Vernon Rickenbacker