Warbird Information Exchange

On a deployment to participate in Bright Star 85, the aircraft experienced problems with the ability to switch between fuel tanks and suffered fuel starvation resulting in the aircraft making a forced landing in the waters off the coast of Athens Greece. All three crew members safely egressed the aircraft and were picked up by the Greek Cruise ship Naias II.

https://flickr.com/photos/17670376@N02/ ... 2316598902

Photo Album include early Cefirm Leader test configuration of the aircraft and the last known photo of 112 on the ferry flight before the ditching.

Great story! I'll bet the cruise ship passengers are still telling that story.

The story we got is that the ship started to seriously list as all the passengers ran to the side of the ship to see what was going on. Somewhere, in photo albums of potentially hundreds of homes thoughout Greece, the rest of Europe, and around the world are photos of this event!

It's a popular beginner's dive site now.

Another story about the incident is members of the unit, the 138th Aviation Company's (US Arny Reserve) Life Support Equipment team approached their counterparts at Patrick AFB to see if they could borrow some inflatable life rafts for their "Annual Training". The USAF obliged by providing "Training" life rafts, which when deployed promptly sunk to the bottom of the Aegean Sea faster than the airplane did. A bit of confusion between Reservist terms like "Annual Training" and what the Air Force assumed, since there was no mention that they were going to be actually used for real overwater flights!

Great story. Now if that was a Stuka lying down there our trousers would be wet!