WIX Archives

The He-111 Crew

Posted by Tulio on Fri Jul 11, 2003 05:10:53 PM

I have received the following, through our WHS PIO, Col. Linda Fountain, and I thought I'd share it with my fellow WIXers:

WHS Cols Ken Hyman and Ole Nygren were with the Heinkel pilots in Midland.
His message to me about the time they shared is below.

Linda Fountain - PIO
West Houston Squadron
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Subj: Re: Fw: aircraft accident
Date: 7/11/03 10:26:04 AM Central Daylight Time
From: khyman@houston.rr.com (Hyman Ken)
To: Hazard99@aol.com

Linda, Ole and I were in Midland Tuesday through Thursday working on the B-29 and were there when the Heinkel took off. We were the last ones to talk to them as they boarded the aircraft. We met them Wednesday morning at the Ramada when we were having breakfast and gave them a ride to headquarters.

Later, the four of us had lunch together at Warfields truck stop. They both were really good guys. One was a U.S.Air pilot and the other was with America West.

The Heinkel was on rotation at Midland and they were preparing the aircraft for an air show in Missoula, Montana. They spent all day Wed. preflighting,
and I thought they were very thorough. They did an extensive run-up that afternoon, and everything seemed fine. When they left Thursday morning, they performed another thorough preflight, and run-up, before taking off.

They gave us a couple of passes, rocked their wings, and headed North. Ole and I had never met them before Wed., but we immediately became friends. I was really
saddened to hear about the accident, Thursday afternoon as we left the hotel. I plan on contacting their families and
share my story that they both acted very professional and conscientious on their preflight.

Ken

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