quemerford wrote:
There was also a YC-125 that was being flown to the Air Force Museum but lost on its ferry flight.
I just happened across a similar case. TB-26B, 44-34156, was written off in a crash landing on 17 August 1985. Some sources state it crashed while being delivered to the South Dakota Air and Space Museum, although the
Aerial Visuals dossier states it was
preparation for the ferry flight. Either way, I can see how this plus the
crash of the YC-125, 48-634, three years later on 29 June 1988 might have started to sour the Heritage and Museums Program on aerial deliveries.
The circumstances of both cases make it clear these were aircraft that had not flown for years and, reading between the lines a bit, sound like cases of people hurriedly trying to make an aircraft airworthy so that it could be donated. If I had to guess, these might have been situations where there was a perverse incentive, such as getting rid of a junk airplane as a tax write-off, to do so. Recall that the
airtanker scandal (which of course was connected to the
2002 crashes) happened at the same time as the latter accident.
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