Warbird Information Exchange

Some of these photos have been floating around on the internet on several different websites for a while and I recently found the original source (or what I believe to be the original source) These photos are from an album belonging to Mike Fitzpatrick covering some of his father's service during and after the war (Lt. Donald F. Fitzpatrick) c 1944 thru 1946 while he was training out of the Miami area. Below is according to what Mike has posted on his flickr account and what he believes to be the story with the damaged Corsairs.
Photos courtesy of Mike Fitzpatrick

"This series of photos shows what appears to be bomb damage to at least two F4U Corsairs parked side-by-side on the tarmac. Both planes number 214 and 215 have a huge hole blown through their fuselages just behind the cockpit (possibly by the same large piece of debris), and several smaller holes scattered from nose to tail. But this is Miami, Florida in 1946; not Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands in 1943. In my research I have not been able to learn what really happened. However, I do remember a story told by my parents of an accident that took place at Miami Naval Air Station while my father was stationed there. According to the story, a pilot practicing his flying over the Everglades got into a spin, could not recover, and bailed out. Before hitting the ground the pilotless aircraft recovered on its own and flew off, leaving the hapless pilot descending in his parachute. The auto-pilot kept pulling the plane's nose up when the plane went into a dive and then pushing it down again when the plane climbed. In this way the plane bunny-hopped over the swamp heading back towards the airbase. But the amplitude of the hops increased each time until the plane finally slammed into the ground on one of the downward plunges. By a freak coincidence, the plane had managed to fly all the way back home on it's own and crashed on the airfield, damaging several planes there! Whether this damage is a result of that incident (if indeed I even remember the story correctly), or if it is from some other cause I do not know."

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“Knowing what’s right, doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.”

Was the Corsair that crashed carrying rockets that went off?

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Hadn't seen these before. I gotta build a model of one of those MF Corsairs!

That's some weirdo damage.
I don't think Corsair's had autopilots, did they? Reread the story, it just says "aircraft". Either way, there have been many accounts of aircraft flying around without a pilot (and autopilot) over the decades. Just by the nature of the trim of the aircraft it can fly quite a long ways.
I wonder if an oxygen or nitrogen bottle got loose. (No, not like the silly A-team episode). When those things go, they go. I've heard of them traveling through brick walls and keep on sailing.

I think I remember reading that Pappy used rubber bands to center the stick in his Corsair, sort of a A/P so he could catch some shuteye on long flights.

Not sure if that helps...

Phil

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A man's got to know his limitations.

Looks like a rocket got loose and punched a few holes. That's what happens when someone lets the smoke out of the rockets!

Whatever went through 215s rear fuselage creating the massive hole entered on the starboard side pushing the metal in, and exited on the port side pushing the metal out. 214 has the same characteristics.

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Life's a Pitts

Those poor MF'ers!

Glad to see you back, Mark. Great essay.

I'm going to guess a run away compressed air / gas tank that became a missile and went through one Corsair and hit a bunch others.

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Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis
Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

Concur that is some funny looking damage in some odd places. Being a Florida bubba and living around hurricanes, that is what first came to my mind. I checked to see if that could be a possibility. All a guess of course if that is the cause. Wiki sez.....

Oct 18, 1944 a Cat 3 hit the Dry Tortugas area
Sept 15, 1945 a Cat 4 hit North Key Largo area
Sept 17, 1947 a Cat 4 hit Port Everglades/Ft Lauderdale

Side thought....wasn't actor Dennis Weaver flying out of that area during the war??

I think it is storm damage too. Looks like one of the aircraft blew into the other. I've seen similar damage when a taxiing airliner blew a light aircraft into airfield objects.

Looks like a O2 bottle may have blown on one of the aircraft,

The damage on the one vert stab looked like some type of horizontal impact damage...possibly an aircraft wing??

Yes, I was thinking the same.

Maybe off topic, but maybe only slightly....

I recently read an account of a guy about training to fly the Corsair in WWII. He said that when the time came to send them out to make their first landings on a "real" carrier, they made them take the worst airplanes in the outfit, the ones with maintenance or other problems, knowing that several of them probably wouldn't be coming back.

"They" were right. Several didn't.

I can pull the Aircraft History Card for BuNo.92423 and see if there is a report included that describes the reason for the damage...next time I go to the library.

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Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com