The Day it Rained P-40 Tomahawks

[Music] welcome to Peninsula seniors out and about we're at the Western Museum of Flight in Torrance let's go see what cindy has for us today welcome everyone to the Western Museum of life I'm Cindy maka the director I now have the privilege to introduce my brother Pat maka aircraft wreck finder extraordinaire in this season of renewal it seems fitting to have a speaker who has done so much for so many people who are seeking closure and a resolution for their lost loved ones and today he will concentrate on one segment of his continuing quest which is aircrewman lost in the training missions during World War two ladies and gentlemen Pat maka [Applause] [Music] before I begin I want to recognize a gentleman in the audience with his son Seth wolf who was a pilot in his own renown and and his son ace Seth's grandfather authored was a co-author of the story of the P forties and this was published in about the year 2000 and wings magazine without this I couldn't make the presentation today I have the accident reports I have news articles but all the work that your grandfather did on this this this book on this story is outstanding long out of print highly valuable if you can ever get a hint hold a copy please do more about what he brought and that's what you see before me as we get going here so what is a tomahawk Curtis Wright built at the by the end of World War two thirteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight p-40s but the tomahawk is the earliest variant the straight p40 had two fifty caliber machine guns in two thirties the p40 be added to additional 30 caliber guns the p40 C was the same with minor changes when you leave that line then you go to the p40 D and especially with the e the Warhawk those are the famous airplanes that went all the way to the end of the war but the tomahawk did fight in China with the Flying Tigers the AVG and later the Flying Tigers had later versions of the tomahawk now the leader of the 57th Pursuit group was major Clayton Hughes and his mission was to fly 25 P 40s from Windsor Locks Connecticut out to the west coast to march field then to McClellan Air Force Base Army Air Base remember the Army Air Corps went out of existed it distance in June of 1941 and it became the Army Air Force from McClellan they were to fly to Medford Oregon participate in war games and then return back the same route all the way to the East Coast so it's a 25 airplane start out but when they arrive at March field there's only 19 of them because of mechanical issues radio issues etc and their paths that they took was from Windsor Locks to Selfridge Field in Michigan from there they went down to Memphis from Memphis they went on down to El Paso Texas from El Paso they went to Luke Army Air Base in Arizona and then on to march field now they left October 24th of 41 on this long flight north but when they arrived at March they had four days to kind of get a little bit of R&R and recovery in when they prepared to depart on October 24th the weather did not look good along their flight route and some of the men in the squadron asked major Hughes if they should not stand down and major Hughes said absolutely not we will depart as scheduled at 11:30 hours and you will follow me he had elements in his flight as they got up over Cajon Pass to head two to hatchapee pass to cross into the Central Valley things started to go south for some reason major Hughes turned to the northeast lieutenant Frank Mears tried to radio him and say Colonel a major where are you going why are you going that direction but the radios in those days weren't very good so what mr. Hughes did was to take 8 airplanes and to go up high highway 395 this was not the scheduled route and they made a forced landing in Smith Valley Nevada at a dirt strip there this is major Clayton Hughes he was a West Point graduate and these are some of the men of the 57th three of the men in the bottom row they're two on the outside would both lose their lives in this flight one of the men on the top row would crash his airplane and another man on the bottom row would later bail out and managed to survive so here's your ash a lot of p40 tomahawks and here's the first accident second lieutenant Ralph D Matthews when he came in at Smith Valley he pranged the airplane he was not injured this is our lieutenant Matthews but his aircraft was a write-off a second p40 landing at Smith Valley the pilot hit the brakes too hard and the prop stuck in the ground and that was the end of that flight for that airplane you could repair it but as you know you can't restart an engine after you've zinged a prop so here's the part of the flight group that got lost in this process lieutenant Mears got over the Tehachapi Mountains and he did get up the Central Valley and remember Hughes his east of the High Sierra he's going up 395 all the way up to Smith Valley so the first airplane to get in trouble is here at the bottom of the picture and that airplane belonged to lieutenant Pease then there's a cluster of three in Kings Canyon National Park and another one further up in the forests near Yosemite National Park second lieutenant John hp's a dashing figure this man is still alive he is 99 years old he is sharp as attacked when his son contacted me at Christmas I said how's your dad do it he said you know Pat that guy hasn't changed a lick in 10 years now john pease as he got up into that storm he got into some very rough weather he was at about 15,000 feet when he said Pat and I interviewed Colonel Pease and he said Pat that my airplane my engine was failing on me suddenly the prompt stopped there was smoke in the cockpit I put the canopy back I jumped I pulled that d-ring and I doubt I came I landed pretty hard but I didn't hurt myself my plane landed not too far from me he said the next thing I did was to gather my parachute and I saw a little stream heading south and I started to follow that that water course so where he came down is in Kern County in the southern end of the High Sierra along Wild Rose Creek in World War two by the way Colonel Pease used up five p-47s a highly decorated p-47 pilot in the European theater of operations all of his p-47s were heap big wheel this is Colonel Pease at his retirement from the United States Air Force after 30 years of distinguished service he was number two in the air defense command at the Pentagon at the time of his retirement prior to that he was a squadron commander of f-102s up there in Labrador so I call him when the wreck of Colonel pieces airplane was found by a hiker going overland who happened to contact me because of my website he said I found an airplane I said did you have a camera take any pictures all no well can you describe it to me and he said well it had olive drab paint there was a 50 caliber machine gun and there was a 30 caliber machine gun and it didn't look like anybody's ever been to this and I said hmm and where was this Wild Rose Creek were up in the Southern High Sierra there I was cutting trails between the PCT and another trail I said hot dog we got it we got we got Colonel pieces airplane so I have a guy that does nothing but find people for me and in a day he said Colonel piece is alive and well he's in Colorado Springs Colorado and he wants you to call him immediately so when I called him and I'm just gonna do his voice as best I can he said I Pat listen you listen to me now I said Colonel can you tell me your story said no you wait a minute he said you know where that airplane is you get your team up there and you get my b4 bag my b4 bag has all my my personals in it I got a I got a wristwatch in there I got some other stuff you get that B for a bag and you get it to me and you take your son up there with them with you because he's a hiker he's in good shape I said okay colonel like that we'll make every effort to do that can you tell me your story and so he told about the bailout and that and he said I had the good fortune to find that cabin the first night and I wrapped up in that parachute I had no food it was very cold there was snow on the ground and the next morning I got up and kept following that tree a creek and it took me to Kennedy Meadows and thank God he said in Kennedy Meadows there was a family a the Willoughby family man his wife and daughter and he staggers and they save his life he said I'd never have made it it's 25 miles from Kennedy down to 395 out of food out of water you wouldn't do it and temperatures were so low and we didn't have the clothes he said to survive those temperatures either so that they drove him down the little lake and he made a phone call and that that ended his part of the story but then he said to me he said now listen I gave that little girl my parachute you find that little girl and you get me my parachute back and that is the truth so we did get the team in there and David Lane is here who went in with my son and went in with John pieces son and the first thing we looked for to verify a crash site we've got to find the prefixes we've got to find the dog tags of the airplane so right away we've got it right there with the prefix and when you see that number right there 87 - then you know you have a p40 you don't know the version but you've got a p40 here's a 50 caliber there's some of that OD paint there's the Allison V 17-10 engine that produced 1090 horsepower the landing gear which if you found that alone you'd know it's a p40 because the gear on the p40 rotated and folded back into the wing and you see a little red there and people say what's that about well it's war game time so these airplanes were sometimes painted with red crosses on the wings and fuselage --is this is John pieces son lives in Portland Oregon and my son on the other side and he did proud for his dad he's in good shape got up there and did what his dad needed him to do and just another shot of john pease jr. so that had a happy ending john pease is alive and well and that airplane is up there in a remote location we don't want to give out the numbers we want to see that that site is preserved as it is the next man to get into trouble on the flight was lieutenant Jack West and this is another man the squadron that I had the privilege to interview he became involved in project tomahawk which we'll talk about later so with Jack West second lieutenant Jack West I asked him about his experience he said I was at 17,000 feet I'm in the clouds I'd get into a spin I'm losing at the airplane is coming down I realize I've got to get out I put the canopy back I'm struggling to get out I'm standing on the instrument panel and I push free and clear I pull the d-ring my airplane hits the ground very near me I was only in the air a few seconds after the pop of that chute I hit the ground what a shock he gathered that parachute and he stayed right there for the first day and night next to the wreckage of his aircraft the next morning he followed roaring River down and he stumbled into a place called the Barton Lackey cabin on roaring River you can see on this map a little bit of that trail there in a model of the p40 there's the Barton Lackey cabin now that's in the national park so Rangers in the summer were using that they kept it stocked with wood and food so when Jack got in there the first thing he did was make a fire to get warm because again they don't have the clothes snow on the ground this is even higher than lieutenant Pease's crash site such a location that smoke didn't attract anybody on the first day but the next day it did because another pilot had bailed out nearby litters like when Len Lydon saw that smoke he headed for that smoke this is some of the wreckage of Jack West's airplane project tomahawk went in to recover much of this and later in the program you will find out more about project tomahawk they went in by horseback I had a broken ankle on this trip but my son went in and many other members of our team and some of this material was recovered for the reconstruction effort this is all still out there today quite a bit of it not everything was removed pilot number three to go down is Leonard Lydon first lieutenant he gets into the same situation in the clouds can't see where he's going losin it icing up he bails out but he bails out and lands on high terrain he doesn't see where his airplane goes this is Leonard Lydon so Len Lydon gets down there with Jack and for the next what 7 days they're stuck at the cabin they use up all the food they try walking out on two occasions but they they turn around both times and they get back to the cabin but on that seventh day they hear the drum of an airplay Jack West his airplane was right there no mystery Leonard lied ins airplane has not been found to this day so we still have one missing tomahawk and David Lane who is in the audience here has made several trips in the sequoia-kings canyon to try to locate that crash site he's going to go back again this summer and we hope to know where Len lied ins airplane actually rests the savior in this was an Army b18 bolo bomber two lieutenants and two observers on board they saw the smoke of the fire at the Barton Lackey cabin they circled and they dropped a streamer and what you see here that Seth brought in as the actual streamers that were dropped weighted streamers with message on it so let's take a look at what that says there the first time around the be 18 pilots dropped the message that said if you're in trouble light another fire so they lit another fire and the bottom of the message said if you know anything about the seen airplanes like two more fires and Jack West told me they they lit a number of extra fires and the next message goes ahead and says stay right where you are because you're gonna be rescued later today by a ground party Jack West and Leonard Lydon were saved they both went on to great careers one with a tragic end Jack was shot down over North Africa and world war two was a prisoner of the Germans he was at the same place where the Great Escape took place at but was moved two weeks before it happened he was actually involved in digging the tunnels he survived the war Len Lydon went on to fly the p-47 many combat missions in Europe on may 8th 1945 he landed at a recently captured German airfield he got out of his airplane got into a jeep went off the field coming back on the field the sentry said halt and he didn't hear it and he was shot dead the fortunes of war lieutenant Richard long now this young man disappeared that same day but the wreck of his airplane was not found until 1959 when two brothers the are not brothers from Mountain View California cut the trail crossing the High Sierra and stumbled into his crash site at 11,000 200 feet above sea level for every name in an accident report there is a faith we need to be reminded of that for losses you read a name that's one thing see the face young man well-educated and a West Point graduate I had the privilege to fly to that crash site during the project tomahawk recovery efforts we went in by helicopter the Park Service wanted all aircraft wreckage removed because to them it was junk it was littered so a project remember us said we can't get it all but we'll take things we can use and at this site the accident report said that lieutenant Long's remains had been recovered and we found out that that wasn't necessarily the case there's a 50 caliber jammed into the ground right there so he came in died instantly disoriented in the clouds plunged into the ground a yellow X had been applied to this wreckage in later years by the Civil Air Patrol and they occasionally will still do that it means don't report it's already known you see the OD paint on this before we left we made a memorial marker and in that marker was a metal tube with a memorial statement honoring the service and sacrifice and loss of lieutenant Richard long now my helicopter had a problem we had a group that we were all flown in we had none of our gear with us and they were gonna have to bring the gear in and then the helicopter gets a chip warning like on the transmission and at the time I didn't realize how serious that was so they fly everybody out my son was with me I I was the last one to go there wasn't room for me so they came back and found me but these guys we learned the hard way had no mountain experience we didn't have GPS in those days and we didn't have radios but I did have them signal mirror and I had to flash the mirror that helicopters going back and forth back and forth until he saw the light and he comes to me and then the Lord master says I got to tell you right now if the transmission fails we're not going to make it because over this terrain we can't all rotate but in my mind I was totally confident we're gonna make it hubris right I'm looking out at the terrain you're seen there and if it had failed I wouldn't be here right now but happily I made it I got out at Red Fern Hill a spot and what a moment my son took that picture now those guys went on back to Fresno but they did have catastrophic failure they went down on a chicken ranch in rolling hill country they both survived with minor injuries but they did some damage to that Hughes 500c helicopter and that's them taken off they put the doors back on and they're departing to go to Fresno the next aircraft to go down was flown by first lieutenant William H Burrell West Point graduate in p40 39 - 200 now the army when they buy airplanes and the Air Force today when they buy airplanes it's by the contract year 1939 the Navy has a totally different system so that's the 200th airplane ordered in 1939 we'll see later some bigger numbers on p40 seas this is lieutenant Burrell his death was related to vertigo flying in those clouds he lost it the airplane came screaming out of the overcast into the forest and left a hole in the ground he died instantly Dunn tragically right after his death and just after the war family went in there and put in the top marker the second marker was brought in by other family members in later years in the 1970s we never forget those whom we loved this is some of the wreckage at the Burrell site very little remains parts of the Allison engine and that's it now when you have airplanes missing you have airplanes searching for those missing aircraft and there was an army PT 17 with two guys looking for these p-40s and they go down now happily they make it with no injury that's what a pt-17 looks like and that's how it was painted in those years high visibility trainer markings look at the numbers there 41 is the year of the order of that airplane 8,000 zero nine one so wartime we weren't at war yet but we knew that was coming and everything is ramping up and you see those numbers zoom in 1941 up into the 30,000 s so here's that wreck of that airplane it's still there today near Balch camp and there's still some of that old blue paint visible at this point we're getting ready for the second phase major Hughes flies his airplanes from Smith Valley over to McClellan Air Force Base Army Air Base near Sacramento everybody else meets there and then they depart for Medford and again there's discussions about weather but they all make it to Medford in Medford though the weather is going south they're gonna cut things short and they're gonna return back to McClellan so here are three more aircraft that go down in the Bay Area at this point and I want to read this quoting lieutenant mirrors there was an open discussion among the fighter pilots concerning the advisability of continuing the flight when so many others including airlines had canceled out but Hughes would have no other way he said we are going as though to combat second lieutenant Walt radevich remarked major why in the world are you going to try to fly in this weather when everyone else is grounded Hughes replied lieutenant radevich if we were at war we would have to fly in such bad weather to stop any ataque radevich asked how are you going to fight an enemy you can't see in the clouds hughes was him movable this was the plan and they would go with it the thirteen p-40s were divided into two sections Hughes would lead the first section of six because lieutenant Mears being a very experienced pilot could lead the other section and that actually broke down into two now before takeoff we had one of these airplanes the radio didn't work and they had an airplane that the instrument lights didn't work and the take-off time was 3:30 in the afternoon and you're at high latitude in October and the sun goes down early right so the pilot with the bad panel he goes off base buys a flashlight that saves his life because as they head south it does get dark they are socked in in clouds they are lost at this point lieutenant Truax and lieutenants peckmon are staying very close together lieutenant radevich is following them but can barely keep them in sight as they proceed south tragically lieutenant Truex and lieutenants peckmon they crash into Bald Hill right in Marin County they're in formation and both are instantly killed one below the road and one above it is socked in now I had the privilege also to speak with Walt radevich because he was following them and he said it was so bad Pat and I was I couldn't see where I was going I'm getting low on fuel now I bailed out and when I bailed out I hit the horizontal stabilizer and shattered my leg I landed very hard but I was alive my airplane came down fairly close to me and this is a nice colorized photo of the Truax crash site there's an army guard with a rifle there and you can see the tail upside down with the tail stickin up parts still remain at both those sites today so here's Walt radevich flying a p40 see look at the numbers on his serial 41 13,000 392 now that's big time production those orders are giant and we haven't had December 7th yet but we know it's coming this is Walt radevich one heck of a guy and that's where his airplane came down in Marin County very near a highway and that's Walt radevich in the hospital recovering and he's got a smile he's alive well what happened to Colonel he keep wanting to call him Colonel major Hughes let me read you this he tells his group I see the lights of Sacramento we're gonna land at McClelland follow me in they land he gets out of the airport and let me read this for you please after the group commander taxied to the parking area near the oakland control tower and shutdown a young man in civilian clothes met him Hughes indignantly asked the man what he was doing on a military base out of uniform the man replied this was not a military installation but Oakland Municipal Airport Hughes vehemently disagreed and said this must be McClellan because that is where the he intended to land after a lively discussion the civilian escorted the major to the base control tower and directed his attention to the sign that said Oakland Municipal Airport elevation six feet November 2nd 1941 was a bad day for the Army Air Force in California on that same day a b-17 with nine men was flying from Reno Nevada over to McClellan and as they were crossing the High Sierra they encountered extreme turbulence and the pilot realized the airplane was in danger of breaking up and he told all the crewmen shoots on go after the jump door jump on my signal he stayed at the controls as the men had gathered together the airplane broke into two pieces the men aft were all thrown out all pulled the d-ring all landed safely with minor injuries only in the Eldorado National Forest the pilot struggled to free himself from the airplane but could not get out and he was found stuck as the air and the wreckage stuck halfway out the window trying to squeeze through he was a hero pilot first lieutenant Leo Walker I had a chance to interview a survivor of this accident this is a b-17 D it's a shark tail early model b-17 and that's the area in which the 17 came down in it had no camouflage on this bird she was all natural aluminum that's an original photo there nothing burned in this accident in this crash site we have the accident report we hike to it we found the markings still highly visible but one of the most remarkable things about this story is I was able to interview Fred Pro Curie who was one of the men who bailed out and he said Pat when we got out of that airplane I pulled my d-ring the chute opened it dead silence it was eerie beyond belief and then I thought I heard the wings of angels and I looked up and I saw a flight manual fluttering down next to me he and all his eight other seven other friends crewmen they all made it again just scratches no broken bones they were found pretty quickly because they're in a flat area of forest I heard the question there that they were able to walk out to a trail to a road and flag down and they got attention right away but this airplane is in remarkable shape it's protected by the antiquities act the 50 year rule so that must be left in situ that's the way we like it amazing you can see the old gun blister you know that early 17 had no turrets and the waist gun had a teardrop sort of set up there that's what you see in a lot of 30 caliber guns and and not only three 50s look at those rubber tires they had no tread in those old smooth rubber tires there was a memorial plaque there on the wreck honoring the service and sacrifice of lieutenant Walker now project tomahawk comes into all this because in the late 1980s kent lance and michael fourtner who were operating right out of it right out of here right out of Torrance Zamperini field they founded project tomahawk they wanted to rebuild the early model P 40 and they wanted to have permission to go into the Sierra and recover wrecks any place they could get parts and things that could be used in remanufacturing and that's their logo the Curtis Wright Historical Association and I had the privilege to be involved with them and to serve as an honorary member of their board here it is right here Torrance they really got the ball rolling and there's an allison engine with can't on the left and mic on the right and what Kent had done was he had gone to Hawaii to recover two P forties that had gone down over their tomahawks this particular airplane had crashed landed just before Pearl Harbor it was in a hangar when the Japanese attacked and then it was fixed up put back into service and in January lieutenant Ken sprinkle crashed it in the cool owl range and regrettably he was killed in that accident but they went out there and recovered from the cool out the p40 tomahawk wreckage and brought it back here to Torrance they had a little reunion Jack West on the left and Walt radevich on the right they were kicking in those days and great men comrades-in-arms they were supporters of the tomahawk rebuild project so here we're back down at Jack West's site and we're packing out material using pack horses there they are that's about 18 miles in there so people say how can you use stuff like this well you use material like this as a template to remanufacture to make new what you need and there's the start of it and there she is coming along now mike fourtner regrettably lost his life and very sadly took his own life and can't ended up selling the project and it was completed at Chino the airplane when finished ended up going to an owner and then to Great Britain at a museum over there but now the Collins foundation has purchased it and brought it back home where it belongs this airplane was restored down to the enth detail that's an inertia starter crank so if you don't have ground power you go out you put the crank in and you do this until you get that going they engage it and that prop starts turning you pull a prank and engage and then you've got the airplane going this airplane was perfectly restored look at the tail wheel the smooth tire this is a B model with the 230 s in the wing very close to the end of the line and here's just a little salute to Mike he was a good man his death was so sad and now we have the tomahawk that flies again the Colleen's foundation will not bring this airplane on their tour because it can't carry a passenger they are bringing a p40 but it's been modified to put a Payne passenger on board this airplane there she is and she wears the marks of the Pearl Harbor of a Pearl Harbor airplane to eight 439 to eight for the true tomahawk I thank you for your kind attention I know I probably missed a few things in the loop here but I really appreciate you all coming out for this story and when the Collins foundation does come West they are flying a p40 but it's a later model it's an e with a seat put in the back so they can sell the ride but this airplane they'll never do that to this those days we look at you know back at that time the war we knew it was coming all the war gains all the war games in progress everything that was happening all the manufacturing buildup and there were accidents then - and more accidents later that's for sure as we get into the second world war as far as people ask all the time about major Hughes I have the documentation where he was called in he had to testify tell his story apparently he was reassigned he was not demoted but he has dropped completely off the radar I don't know that he ever flew again and may have been assigned to some other desk job but without his number we can't track that down people are looking into it okay Betty says it's time for questions if there are any the question is when did we go in the first visitation started in 1989 90 91 and those were the years when most of this was done nothing will be done of course with John pieces airplane that's going to be left in situ and it's protected by the 50-year rule and that's been that was 2016 that we went in to John pieces airplane but remember Leonard lied ins p40 is still missing and I'm counting on David Lane David Lane as a retired Delta Air Line captain he owned a b-26 invader bomber until it flew him to the poorhouse Dave would you stand up please David Lane ladies and gentlemen okay old man Rogers yes and on his lead we're gonna get back in there David and you're gonna find that thing it is sad though for old man Rogers he owned Rogers helicopters he lost two of his sons flying and he was so heartbroken he sold a business and never flew again we were scheduled to fly into the hinterlands for another mission when the Ranger came to the hill a spot and said you can go home and we said why is that the helicopter coming to pick you up as crash the pilot has been killed that sets you back a bit good question what happened to the b4 bag well my son Roger you know peace Junior got it they went through that wreckage it's in a bramble and a tangle they didn't find the bag but they did bring back a few artifacts and of course plenty of photos he was well pleased and again he is still kicking today more power to him how was lieutenant radevich found that was easy came down right on the road roadway in Marin County and everybody saw that airplane hit and the the sparks fly and that so he was picked up immediately but the boys on Bald Hill that was a day or so before they that they people heard the crash but the clouds had to dissipate before they were recovered what's next on our list we've got a list five miles long and that list includes aircraft from way back and even those in the modern era so we were out on Wednesday in Imperial County because a man had contacted me about an a4 Skyhawk crash site that he had been to and he thought it was a blue angel flown by Lieutenant Commander Stu power II now I have been to seven Blue Angel sites in their training area and lieutenant lieutenant commander power II was killed during a loop or what they call a dirty loop the other seven that we visited all in one place along a railroad track were they line up they come in they do the loop and the airplane goes back into the ground so f11 Tigers f4 phantoms a4 Skyhawks nothing more depressing than that a lot of blue metal blue and gold there's no fire it's high speed impact of fuel vaporizes so powdery was not flying in that area I knew that so this guy tell he's a retired guy he's kind of up in years so he gave us these directions we get out there we're trying to figure him out he said there's a building and there's a green water tank and you go east to that water tank well we see a tan building in one place and we see an old derelict place you wouldn't want to go near if anybody was there burned-out vehicles and stuff now so we hiked all around we had to four-wheel-drive vehicles and we crossed the road and I knew there was an f8 crusader near this site because I had been to it and F eights are real easy CV chance bought and you have the prefix numbers and a lot of white metal well the Park Service asked me to take them to that site I wish I hadn't Anza Borrego and we identified the site because in going back we found that it was cleaned up probably in a cleanup kind of activity so we're up going to the shed now hoping that that will lure this building and we're saying there's no water tanks so I get on the radio and I tell Tom Maloney come on back Tom we're wasting our time we need more data on this so we come back we retreat and by the way we did visit another site on that day that was a marine a d5 sky Raider that had gone down in 1956 with two men out of El Toro there was a young enlisted man who had never flown before on this guy I'll take you and they jump in this 85 sitting side-by-side and witnesses saw them come over ran cheetah right above Borrego Springs and plunged as a big drop off their plunge down into the desert but the dive brakes on the airplane had been wired shut now the pilot was allegedly told this but he couldn't extend the dive brakes he pulled up stalled and boom that was it and that killed two men a very localized area there blue metal because the they were still painting them blue in those days so we always take the flag we always have the project remembrance team patch we take a moment to read the names to honor their service and sacrifice so that's sort of what a day is like for us now I get home and I called this retired guy and I said we went to your coordinates they were south of the highway the building is north what's going on here and we saw no water tank and then he says oh it's not really a water tank it's kind of three feet tall it's a trough wellthank you know so if I hadn't called Tom Maloney back we'd have had it now we're going back out next Wednesday and we're going to check this out I need to know what airplane that is is that stupor is a four E or is that material possibly from the scatter of the f8 I have been to more than eight hundred crash sites mostly in remote locations the number grows its way leads on to way but it's all aviation accidents are part of aerospace history and it's not just the airplane that we're focused on it's the people involved to tell their story to document their story my archive in Mission Viejo takes up one whole section of a three-car garage there are many people in this room would have been there it's all California I used to do stuff for other states I've been elsewhere I gave all that to somebody else I got my hands full right here in California today there are three other missing aircraft besides the p40 there is the t-33 flown by lieutenant David Steves who punched out 1956 he survived more than 50 days in the wilderness before he was rescued and when he was rescued he was initially people said you couldn't possibly have survived you couldn't possibly have done this he had a big beard he had lost 60 pounds he was found crawling on his hands and knees over Bishop pass in June when the first pack train came in he survived because he too found a cabin like the Barton Lackey it had food and firewood he ate everything in there but he got in a little trouble for something else he had a non-regulation pistol with him and he shot a deer he was an outdoorsman and he he ate that venison so he was accused never formally but people said hey you staged this it's a publicity stunt you flew the airplane to Mexico because they've got pee 3033 you had an illegal gun you shouldn't have had this by the way you know what the Air Force did because of Steves they they started in survival training at sted Air Force mountain and desert and they start a jungle training survival in Florida water and jungle at Homestead because of the Steve's thing but he resigned his commission his wife found out that he had had an affair he died a young man in the early 60s he was flight testing a modified Stenson reliant in Idaho pulling up the wing came off and that was all she wrote once again thanks so much but I do say I want to say that David Lane has been looking for another airplane a Piper pa-28 with three people on board Oakland to Ogden Utah dave has been up there how many summers Dave six six times and thanks to the work of doctor Arpad Vass who has developed a sensing system that and and you can do the the the little story on that see his TED talk but it senses decaying DNA bones and he has a plume for that family in a certain area of Yosemite and that's where David's been going into and we hope they for the sake of the family for their closure that this will work the Arpad Vass system has been used by law enforcement I don't understand it it's beyond me completely the other airplane is a light plane is that assessment of 210 yeah 210 probably west of El Lake Tahoe that crashed into the granite chief and one man on board the question is is there special training for flying over the Sierras well people should be mindful of the Sierra wave effect that can get you in clear weather as well as in storms and what's his name Steve Fossett that's a Sierra wave issue on that but anytime you're around mountain flying yes special training if you're a GA pilot you should have special instruction on how to manage that the light aircraft in turbulence or in those winds definitely got to be mindful at all times they no they had no radar they couldn't see ahead of themselves just trying to stake stay on the instruments to be instrument trained and stay glued to the instruments and that one young guy that got the flashlight saved his life coming down he landed there at Auckland - only because he had a flashlight he said without that flashlight I wouldn't have made it thank you so much [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and and Thank You Seth these are the real deal thank you for watching Peninsula seniors out and about I'm Betty Wheaton see you next time [Music]

Channel: PeninsulaSrsVideos

Views: 20,388

Rating: 4.8248849 out of 5

Keywords: WWII, Veterans, P-40, Tomahawk, fighter, pilot, crash, air wreck, documentary, USAF, Air Force, Western Museum of Flight, Betty Wheaton, Pat Macha, aviation, P-51, B-17, USA Air Corps, Stearman PT-17, B-17 Bomber, Collings Foundation, Chino Air Museum, Zamperini Field, Torrance Airport, Peninsula Seniors

Id: wXSQjp24mq4

Length: 54min 30sec (3270 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 30 2019