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This is a list of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft grouped by the year in which the accident or incident occurred. Not all of the aircraft were in operation at the time. For more exhaustive lists, see the Aircraft Crash Record Office or the Air Safety Network or the Dutch Scramble Website Brush and Dustpan Database. Combat losses are not included except for a very few cases denoted by singular circumstances.
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Information on aircraft gives the type, and if available, the serial number of the operator in italics, the constructors number, also known as the manufacturer's serial number (c/n), exterior codes in apostrophes, nicknames (if any) in quotation marks, flight callsign in italics, and operating units.
![]() A Douglas C-47A similar to the accident aircraft | |
Accident | |
---|---|
Date | 21 November 1943 |
Summary | CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) |
Site | Locust Mountain, Mahanoy Township, Pennsylvania |
Aircraft type | Douglas C-47A |
Operator | United States Army Air Forces |
Registration | 42-32929 |
Flight origin | Lawson Army Airfield |
Destination | Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove |
Passengers | 5 |
Crew | 4 |
Fatalities | 7 |
Injuries | 2 |
Survivors | 2 |
On 21 November 1943, a Douglas C-47 aircraft crashed into Locust Mountain in Mahanoy Township, Pennsylvania. Seven of the occupants on board the aircraft were killed, and two survived with serious injuries. [159]
On the night of 21 November 1943, three Douglas C-47A aircraft took off from Lawson Field in Fort Benning, Georgia. They were heading to Naval Air Station Willow Grove in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania, to pick up CG-4A gliders and tow them to Maxton AAF. [159] At the time, Maxton was the site of the largest CG-4A glider pilot training base in the world. [160]
In the airspace around Washington, DC the three aircraft entered a large storm front and lost visual contact with one another. Captain Bernard Cederholm, the pilot of 42-32929, [161] decided to divert to the now-abandoned Barnsville Auxiliary Airfield near Allentown, Pennsylvania. Due to weather circumstances and low visibility, Cederholm failed to locate the airfield. He was following a holding circuit when the aircraft hit trees on Locust Mountain, located approximately an eighth of a mile west of Tamaqua, Pennsylvania at 2110 EST, and broke up. A fire broke out on impact, and seven of the nine aboard were killed. The two survivors left were Corporal Joseph W. Enloe and Private Charles H. Davis, who were found wandering around the site of the crash a half hour afterwards. [162] The force of the crash was so powerful that it is reported that the tail was thrown approximately 1,500 feet away from the impact site. [162]
The aircraft, a Douglas C-47A with the tail number 42-32929 was first flown in 1943. [159] n In total, seven of the nine occupants onboard 42-32929 were killed in the resulting crash: [163]
The cause of the crash was never fully determined, although it is believed to be a case of CFIT (controlled flight into terrain).
21 March
Royal Air Force Halifax Bomber JP137 crashed soon after take-off from Hurn Airport in Southern England killing all on board and two civilians on the ground. [242]
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engined heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). A fast and high-flying bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater of Operations and dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during World War II. It is the third-most produced bomber of all time, behind the American four-engined Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the German multirole, twin-engined Junkers Ju 88. It was also employed as a transport, antisubmarine aircraft, drone controller, and search-and-rescue aircraft.
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Lady Be Good is a B-24D Liberator bomber that disappeared without a trace on its first combat mission during World War II. The plane, which was from 376th Bomb Group of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), was believed to have been lost—with its nine-man crew—in the Mediterranean Sea while returning to its base in Libya following a bombing raid on Naples on April 4, 1943. However, the wreck was accidentally discovered 710 km (440 mi) inland in the Libyan Desert by an oil exploration team from British Petroleum on November 9, 1958. A ground party in March 1959 later identified the aircraft as a B-24D.
Royal Air Force Polebrook or more simply RAF Polebrook is a former Royal Air Force station located 3.5 miles (5.6 km) east-south-east of Oundle, at Polebrook, Northamptonshire, England. The airfield was built on Rothschild estate land starting in August 1940.
The 91st Bombardment Group (Heavy) was an air combat unit of the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. Classified as a heavy bombardment group, the 91st operated Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft and was known unofficially as "The Ragged Irregulars" or as "Wray's Ragged Irregulars", after the commander who took the group to England. During its service in World War II the unit consisted of the 322nd, 323rd, 324th, and 401st Bomb Squadrons. The 91st Bombardment Group is most noted as the unit in which the bomber Memphis Belle flew, and for having suffered the greatest number of losses of any heavy bombardment group in World War II.
The 33d Troop Carrier Squadron is an active United States Air Force unit, redesignated as the Air Mobility Command Test and Evaluation Squadron. It is assigned to the Air Mobility Command. During the Second World War the 33 TCS was with the 374th Troop Carrier Group, based at Nielson Field, Luzon, Philippines. It was last reactivated on 1 October 1994.
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In 1934, all United States commercial air mail carrying contracts were cancelled due to controversy over how the contracts had been awarded. The United States Army Air Corps was charged with carrying air mail service, beginning 19 February 1934. Due in part to extremely bad weather, inadequate preparation of the mail pilots, and the inadequacies of pressing military aircraft into duties for which they were not designed, there ensued a series of accidents over the following three months, ending when commercial services were restored. In all, 66 major accidents, ten of them with fatalities, resulted in 13 crew deaths, creating intense public furor. Only five of the 13 deaths actually occurred on flights carrying mail, but directly and indirectly the air mail operation caused accidental crash deaths in the Air Corps to rise by 15 percent to 54 in 1934, compared to 46 in 1933 and 47 in 1935.
Everett Ernest Blakely was a career officer of the United States Air Force. He was a highly decorated B-17 pilot with the "Bloody Hundredth" Bombardment Group of the 8th Air Force in Europe during World War II. He received eleven medals for his service including the Silver Star for "gallantry in action", the Distinguished Flying Cross for "heroism or extraordinary achievement during aerial flight" and the Air Medal with 4 oak leaf clusters. Blakely and the crew of his plane "Just A Snappin" long held the record for the most enemy aircraft shot down on a single mission. The crew of Just A Snappin was credited with 9 enemy aircraft shot down. He also received his Pilot Wings with 3 stars from the Colombian Air Force.
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