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+--- Thread: B24 Collision over DV 1944 (/showthread.php?tid=26261)
B24 Collision over DV 1944 - Beardilocks - 2023-10-24
An incident I only just learned about. Maybe some of the old timers are already aware of it, but it was new to me. DV has soooo many secrets still.
The part about dynamiting the wrecks and trying to bury them was especially interesting.
In August of 1944, at night, 20,000 ft over DV, six B24 Liberators were on a training flight in close formation. Most all of the crews were only 18 years to early 20's old. Two of the planes collided and the blades of one cut off the tail of the other. The two planes broke apart in mid-air. 18 men (9 per plane) were plummeting to the ground. Only one of the men, a belly or tail gunner, had a parachute on. He was luckily thrown free from the tumbling wreckages and made it alive to the ground, his head scalped by swirling metal in the air, but alive. They found him in the daytime wandering around dazed in the 120 degree heat. 17 men died though. The Army collected the deceased and decided that due to the logistics, I would be best to dynamite the two plane wreckages and bury the debris in the salt pan. It sort of worked but not 100%. The remaining parts and pieces stand as a reminder that the cost of war happens even before airmen and soldiers make it to the battlefield. In 1944 alone, over 5,000 airmen died JUST training. They never left the USA. Let's remember their sacrifice and if you know this location, please respect the site as a memorial, there are still relatives alive of the deceased.
On August 1, 1944, six B-24 Liberators took off from Muroc Army Air Field for training in gunnery and formation flying. One B-24J collided with, and sheared off the tail of, a B-24D which immediately plummeted. Gunnery student Private Newton J. Steven was thrown from the B-24J and was able to parachute successfully. All the other eight aviators in the B-24J perished along with all eight airmen on the B-24D (Mireles 2006). Scattered debris from the crash is still visible in the park (Macha and Jordan 2002).
Photo courtesy of Steve Williams on FB.
Wondering what the total of downed aircraft in the park is. Obviously there's the Albatross on Towne. I've heard of another B24 crash landing in Saline Valley.
RE: B24 Collision over DV 1944 - GowerGulch42 - 2023-10-24
(2023-10-24, 10:26 AM)Beardilocks Wrote: Wondering what the total of downed aircraft in the park is. Obviously there's the Albatross on Towne. I've heard of another B24 crash landing in Saline Valley.
In an area the size of Connecticut, it's probably quite a few! I know of about a dozen military wrecks, not including debris like targets or dropped fuel tanks. The amount of debris on those ranges from whole wrecks to scattered jetsam. I did a quick NTSB incident report search (comprehensive since ~2002, pretty good to about 1965) and there have been dozens of private plane crashes in light aircraft ranging from hard landings at landing strips (a lot of those at Chicken Strip in Saline) to controlled flight into terrain incidents. Most light aircraft get removed by helicopter, so there isn't much wreckage from those. Military aircraft still crash in the park once in a while, including the F-18 at Rainbow Canyon a couple years ago and an F-22 down by the Owlsheads in 2009.
There's probably a lot of stuff laying around out there from times before rigorous cleanup was the norm.
RE: B24 Collision over DV 1944 - DAW89446 - 2023-10-24
I don't know if it's still online, there used to be a large and extensive website about aircraft crashes in the entire region, including other places in California and Nevada. It was very comprehensive and chock full of info. A quick search just now turns up lots of fragmented reports on single incidents.
RE: B24 Collision over DV 1944 - netllama - 2023-10-24
(2023-10-24, 04:59 PM)DAW89446 Wrote: I don't know if it's still online, there used to be a large and extensive website about aircraft crashes in the entire region, including
If you know the URL, you can likely find it on archive.org
RE: B24 Collision over DV 1944 - DAW89446 - 2023-10-24
Thank you for the suggestion, but alas, no I don't recall. It might be lingering under layers of search results, I only checked two pages.
EDIT: I checked again using different verbiage in the search and came up with this:https://planecrashmap.com/map/ca/
It includes California, Nevada and a few in Utah and Arizona. But the URL name doesn't seem to be familiar with me, and I note some missing famous crashes; such as the crash that killed actress Carrol Lombard in 1942 on Potosi Mountain, southwest of Las Vegas.
RE: B24 Collision over DV 1944 - Desert Rambler (Steve Williams) - 2024-01-04
(2023-10-24, 10:26 AM)I have a video on YT of the site visit, have you seen it?Beardilocks Wrote: An incident I only just learned about. Maybe some of the old timers are already aware of it, but it was new to me. DV has soooo many secrets still.
The part about dynamiting the wrecks and trying to bury them was especially interesting.