WIX Archives

FAH Corsair Rediscovered

Posted by Rob Mears on Tue Mar 12, 2002 02:07:53 PM

This should be news to most of you. There has been a rumor for a long time that the center fuselage of a Honduran Corsair still existed in the boneyard at Tegucigalpa. I even found an old note I made fifteen years ago that someone had possibly spotted this bird 'tucked away' at the Fuerza Area Hondurena base.

Well for one, I have no idea how to comprehend Spanish so my ability to communicate across the border has been somewhat stifled over the years :) Thanks to the powers of the internet, and folks like Tulio Soto, I managed to cross paths with Jorge Gonzalez who is associated with the Museo del Aire de Honduras. Jorge recently wrote me with this information:

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I received the hard evidence during the last couple of weeks with the receipt of a picture of an F4U-4 center section residing in the tall grass adjacent to the air base at Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Believe it or not, it has remained a mystery because it looks like wreckage associated with a partial C-47 fuselage that was stacked on top of it so many years ago! Regardless, the center section in the color photo I received looks quite servicable, with some sheet metal damage to the upper cockpit area due to the weight of the Gooney Bird resting on top of it.

If I can reach Jorge and get permission to post the photo, I'll do so. For the record this is FAH-617 (BuNo.97382) which suffered a hard landing during active FAH operations in the 1970's while piloted by Colonel Milla. The rear fuselage for this plane was brought back during 1979 along with the other disassembled fuselages that Jim Nettle & George Heaven returned by train.

There was one other rear fuselage brought back without a center section, but that aircraft burned to the ground as was evidenced by the fire & compression damage at the forward factory break. This wraps up the last remaining mystery surrounding the ultimate fate of ALL of the Honduras Corsairs :)

Rob

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