Today seventy one years ago. 23nd Sep 1943 PB4Y-1 Liberator BuNo 32039 of VB-103 Squadron of the US Navy Fleet Air Wing 7. Crash landed at RAF St.Eval Cornwall. At the time of the crash Ens.Williamson was flying the plane from the left hand seat. After contacting the tower and receiving permission to land, he entered the traffic circle and made a normal approach. Before landing he received a Red signal from the control truck, so he pulled up and made another approach for a landing. Landing was made directly into the sun on a camouflaged runway, with a 30deg cross-wind of ten knots. As the plane came over the rise in the middle of the field, pilot noticed a small rock hill in the landing path which he had not been able to distinguish before. Lt. Muckenthaler then took control of the plane and applied starboard brake and outboard #1 engine in an attempt to bring plane back on runway. The planes heading changed, but due to wet grass, plane continued into hill, passing over several ditched, which cut speed down to 60mph. Plane DBR Crew all okay. Pilot Lt C. P. Muckenthaler USN, Ens D. S. Williamson A-V(N) USNR, Amm2c C. T. Stocksdale USNR, and Rm3c J. Slohoda USN. Information from Dunkeswell Memorial Museum. dmm103105110.btck.co.uk
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 17:52:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015