Warbird Information Exchange

There was a photo of N9446Z in Warbirds International many years ago in the white colors. I remember some mention of the crash in the caption. A couple of issues later there was a letter from the guy who lost his mother in the house the 25 struck.
Do we know which 51 driver who was in the air and witnessed the accident?

T J

_________________
Make my day, punk!

Kenneth Schons, formerly a pilot with the 20th Fighter Group / 79th Fighter Squadron, was killed in this crash (he was the co-pilot). At the time he was Director of Operations and Chief Pilot of Air Chicago Freight Airlines, Inc., based out of Midway.

_________________
Victory By Valor (Motto of the 20th Fighter Group)

Cripes was based there at that time. (from MustangsMustangs.com)
1966: (Richard Burns)
1987: (John Rodgers)
1990: (Richard Burns)
1993: (Jack Rodgers)
1996: N251KW (Ken Wagnon) "Cripes a Mighty IV"

_________________
T-6F, N81857
warbirdridesusa@gmail.com

Dick Hendricksen might have been flying the P-51 for Burns or Rogers that day.
VL

Unfortunately, my Kodak Photo CD file for this photo appears to be corrupted so I can't pull up a higher resolution image of the writing. And nothing in the registration file appears to connect to the writing on the nose.

_________________
Scott Thompson
Aero Vintage Books
http://www.aerovintage.com
WIX Subscriber Since July 2017

Ryan, you are correct, they had put down the deposit and were waiting at Geneseo for the airplane to be delivered when my dad got the call.... We were just talking about this a few weeks ago.....

Hi,
Just found this site while doing a search for this plane crash while talking to a buddy about it. I was 12 years old at the time and was an eye witness, approximately 150-175 feet away when it crashed. Me and a few friends were riding our bikes around a local park (Nathan Hale), which is approximately 6 city blocks west of Midway Airport in Chicago. I heard a screaming sound-similar to what you hear in war movies when a plane is going down-, and when I looked up, I saw a silver plane (later identified as a B-25 Mitchell which was then in use for local air freight use) crash into a house on the corner and explode. As it turned out, the plane continued into another house, completely demolishing both of them and killing both aircrew. There was a police call box about 25 feet from where I was at, and I used it to call the police. I was interviewed by a local paper shortly thereafter but never saw the interview in print. I, as a resourceful 12 year old kid, was able to locate and abscond with the forward crew entry hatch, as well as a section of either the pilot or co-pilot seat, including the seat belt and clasp, with what I believe was burnt flesh on the cloth belt portion. We also found the pilot's toiletry kit, containing his ID and $100.00-this was turned over to the police. The other two items were not. I still have them in my possession.