WIX Archives
1st hand acct of accident
Posted by Karen on Thu Jan 03, 2002 02:30:41 PM
In reply top <<has first hand experience of sand as a quality... posted by Tony on Thu Jan 03, 2002 01:59:07 PM
Hi,
The following is a portion of a written statement given by the people who recovered Dean's body. It is dated 15 Nov 44, which was the day after the crash.
"These five planes were travelling in a slightly NW direction when one plane angled down to a lower level, it seemed he was cutting low, then when he tried to straighten up he travelled some distance with a spray kicking up like a speed boat travelling at terrific speed. Suddenly, the plane hit the water with a terrific crash and seemed to bounce. Shortly,there was an explosion folled by a fire, and parts from the plane were blown into the air. The distance from the wreck made it impossible to tell what these parts were, the distance was about 2500 feet.
We immediately cranked up and proceeeded to the crash. There were parts of the wreckage still above the water, and gasoline was pouring from one of the tanks. About 50 feet to the left of the plane we saw something white floating, which proved to be the pilot's parachute. This was partially submerged, and upon pulling it into the boat we recovered the body of the pilot, who was dead.
Due to the size of the boat we were unable to put the body in the boat so we held him up and started for shore. We also took one of the oxygen flasks, there were two present, and tied it to the exposed wreckage which was sinking rapidly. On leaving the scene thee was no wreckage floating except these two flasks. We picked up the logbook and other floating papers.
We did not use the oatboard motor due to the large amount of gas on the water. So we paddled beyondd the oil slick where we towed to shore. Signed Frank S. Wright
This is always a tough one for me to type but maybe it will help. Sorry it took me so long to do this.
Karen