Tue Mar 03, 2009 8:23 am
Blue Angels crash artifacts found 50 years later
By BILL KACZOR – 1 hour ago
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — Debbie Harris knew the military dog tag and small metal emblem of a Navy fighter squadron she recently found in the sand near her home on an Alabama beach belonged to a Blue Angels pilot who was killed when his jet crashed there a half-century ago.
But she wanted to find out more about Cmdr. Robert Nicholls Glasgow and what happened , so she turned to her aunt and uncle, who live in Pensacola, home of the National Museum of Naval Aviation. Their search led them to the museum's director, Bob Rasmussen, a retired Navy captain and once a member of the famed flight demonstration team.
"I said to myself, 'Isn't that a coincidence,' " Rasmussen mused. "Of all the people that they might have brought this to, it happened to be the person who was flying with him the morning he was killed in that crash."
That's not the only coincidence, Harris said Friday, when she went to the museum to show Rasmussen what she had found.
Harris, 56, of Fort Morgan, Ala., said she came upon the fire-scorched emblem from Fighter Squadron 191, one of Glasgow's previous units, in mid-October. It was nearly 50 years to the day after the Oct. 14, 1958 crash.
The emblem probably had been on a Zippo cigarette lighter, Rasmussen said. She also found a small piece of metal shaped like a W, but Rasmussen couldn't identify it.
Harris then found the dog tag, bent but with the pilot's name clearly visible, on Feb. 17 — Glasgow's birthday. He was born on that date in 1922.
"It's like he's — I don't know," Harris said. "It's spooky."
Harris thinks hurricanes that swept through the area in recent years may have uncovered the items.
She wants to give them to Glasgow's family, but she's been unable to find any relatives through her research on the Internet. An Oct. 15, 1958, article on the crash in the Pensacola News Journal indicated Glasgow had a wife and four children and that his parents lived in El Monte, Calif.
Rasmussen said he'll try to help her search, although he hardly knew Glasgow. Glasgow had reported for duty at Pensacola Naval Air Station as the Blue Angels new leader just a few days before his first flight in one of the team's F-11 Tigers ended in tragedy.
The outgoing Blue Angels commander, Ed Holley, had asked Rasmussen, one of the team's most experienced air show pilots, to take Glasgow on an orientation flight. They took off in separate jets on a clear, cloudless day and headed for the Blue Angels' practice area over the Gulf of Mexico just off the Alabama coast.
Rasmussen's No. 4 jet had just had its radio identification device replaced and he needed to fly to a higher altitude over Mobile, Ala., to test it, something Glasgow had been briefed on before they took off. Holley also told Rasmussen they could try some maneuvers at high altitude but nothing low.
"I dropped him off at the site and said, 'Just orbit here until I get back. I'll be back in three or four minutes,'" Rasmussen recalled.
It was their last communication.
"I went up there, checked out the equipment, came back on the radio, called him and he was already gone," Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen didn't see Glasgow's jet crash into a vacant house at Fort Morgan and then explode — only the aftermath.
"I could see the smoke and a big black mark on the beach," Rasmussen said. "Flying lower I could see some blue pieces of metal and it was pretty obvious what had happened."
Witnesses on the ground said the jet crashed while attempting a loop.
"I'm always looking for things there," said Harris, a retired aircraft company employee who works the night shift at a Wal-Mart. "I grew up knowing about the crash."
She said she found the squadron emblem no more than 200 feet from the crash site, now covered with sand and sea oats. She then did some research and found out the pilot's name before seeing it on the dog tag she spotted along a path between her house and the water.
"I was walking along there and looked down and I saw this and went, 'Um, oh my gosh,' " Harris said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"It was like one of those magical moments," she said. "I stood there and the sun was setting and I held this in my hand and I said, 'No one has touched this since it was around his neck, and I'm touching it.' It was real emotional."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Tue Mar 03, 2009 3:18 pm
Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:32 pm
Wed Mar 04, 2009 4:09 pm
Family to get pilot's items 50 years after crash
By MELISSA NELSON Associated Press Writer
Posted: 03/04/2009 12:30:56 PM PST
PENSACOLA, Fla.—It has been 50 years since 12-year-old Patrick Glasgow walked into his father's bedroom and told the U.S. Navy Blue Angels commander goodbye before heading to school.
It was the last time the boy would speak to his father, Cmdr. Robert Nicholls Glasgow, who died later that day in October 1958 when his F-11 Tiger crashed near the Gulf of Mexico on a training flight.
The son learned after reading an Associated Press story Tuesday that the dog tag his father was wearing and a small metal emblem of his Navy fighter squadron—likely part of his father's Zippo lighter—were recently found by an Alabama woman who wants to return the items to the family.
"I am very much in shock," he said Wednesday from his Newport Beach, Calif., home.
"I get choked up when I think about my dad. The fact that he was an aviator back then was awesome to me. Not only was he a good aviator, but he was good enough to be commander of the Blue Angels."
The son followed his father by joining the Marines and flying the F-4 fighter jet from 1968 to 1972.
The Alabama woman, Debbie Harris, found the items on the sand at a beach near her home. Curiosity about the artifacts led her to the Museum of Naval Aviation at Pensacola Naval Air Station where she found Bob Rasmussen, a retired Navy captain, former Blue Angel and the museum's director.
Rasmussen was flying with Glasgow on Oct. 14, 1958, the morning of the fatal crash.
A friend of the Glasgow family read The Associated Press story in California and the family contacted Rasmussen.
Harris wants to return the items in person, either by traveling to California or by having the family come to Alabama.
"My worst fear would be that they would be indifferent, that they would say for me do whatever I wanted to with these things. I'm so relieved that they care and that they want these items," she said.
The pilot's widow, 87-year-old Mickie Sue Glasgow, jokes that it's time for her to buy a lottery ticket because of the unlikely chance of anyone finding and returning her husband's belongings.
"He loved flying and he died doing what he loved. I've always tried to talk to my kids about their father and they've always been very interested in him," she said.
Patrick Glasgow sees the return of his father's belonging as a positive sign.
"I told my mom yesterday that maybe dad is trying to send us a message that he is still looking over us or something," he said.
Wed Mar 04, 2009 6:03 pm
Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:38 pm