Death
On March 18, 1953, Ellsworth was co-piloting an American Convair RB-36H Peacemaker bomber on a 25-hour journey as part of a simulated combat mission flying from Lajes, Azores back to the Rapid City base. As part of their exercise, the bomber was observing radio silence and had switched off their radar guidance, flying via celestial navigation.
They had planned to fly low over the ocean, steadily increasing to higher altitudes before reaching the mountainous countryside of Newfoundland. Late into the night, the aircraft struck bad weather and went off course, reaching Newfoundland 90 minutes earlier than planned. At 4:10 am at a hill near Burgoyne's Cove, inland from Nut Cove, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, with sleet, fog, freezing drizzle, and visibility estimated at less than 1⁄8-mile (0.20 km), the plane struck an 896-foot hill at 800 feet with a ground speed of 202 knots. The aircraft's propellers severed the tops of pine trees while the plane's left wing hit the ground, tore off, and spilled fuel. The rest of the plane impacted some thousand feet further. The impact and subsequent fire from the plane's fuel tanks scorched an 8-foot-deep (2.4 m) trench in the countryside. Loggers on a nearby hill spotted the fireball and alerted rescuers, but all 23 on board were killed on impact. That same night, a Boeing SB-29 Superfortress search and rescue plane was sent out to assist in search efforts. It disappeared and was presumed crashed as well.
In the aftermath of the crash, an accident investigation board recommended new procedures to scan more frequently for approaching high terrain and to climb to safer altitudes before approaching within 200 miles of a water-land boundary. President Dwight Eisenhower personally went to the Rapid City base and renamed it Ellsworth Air Force Base, to honor the general.
Read more about this topic: Richard E. Ellsworth
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“At noon, you walk across a river. It is dry, with not this much water: it is just stones and pebbles. But it rains cats and dogs in the mountains, and towards afternoon, the water descends wildly and she ravages all in its path, the madwoman. That is how death comes. Without our expecting it, and we cannot do a thing against it, brothers.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“I knew the poor,
I knew the hideous death they die,
when famine lays its bleak hand on the door;
I knew the rich,
sated with merriment,
who yet are sad.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“The things a man has to have are hope and confidence in himself against odds, and sometimes he needs somebody, his pal or his mother or his wife or God, to give him that confidence. He’s got to have some inner standards worth fighting for or there won’t be any way to bring him into conflict. And he must be ready to choose death before dishonor without making too much song and dance about it. That’s all there is to it.”
—Clark Gable (1901–1960)