Marvel Crosson died on August 19, 1929, when her airplane crashed in the Arizona desert on the second day of the 1929 National Women's Air Derby that had begun in California. Her body was found several hundred feet from her plane. Crosson's parachute had been released, but was unopened. Investigators in 1929 thought that this possibly indicated that she was too near the ground for the parachute to work properly after being released.