Death by Flying Boxcar

The U.S. Army's 499th Combat Engineer Battalion boarded nine C-119 Flying Boxcars at an air base near Stuttgart one afternoon last week. Their mission was to become familiar with the problems and advantages of moving themselves and their equipment by air. Within minutes, the 540 men and their heavy trucks and weapons disappeared into the yawning cargo holds, and the 20-ton planes took off over the Black Forest. It was perfect flying weather. As they flew along in tight formation, one engine of Plane 8 stuttered and cut out. The pilot requested and got permission to drop out of formation. But suddenly, after losing altitude, Plane 8 headed upwards and rammed a wing into the nose of Plane 9 overhead. There was a deafening explosion. The wreckage of what had been Plane 8 fell into a pine forest below. Plane 9 managed to stay on course for almost a minute after the collision. Then its tail unit fell off, and the second C-119 tumbled downward and burst into flames.

Only when the fires had burned themselves out was it possible to pick up what was left of ten U.S. airmen and 56 American soldiers (average age: 24) in the two planes, most of them charred beyond recognition. They died in the fourth big-est air crash in history.*

* The worst: the crash of a C124 Globemaster near Tokyo in 1953, killing 129 U.S. servicemen. In 1952, another C124 fell in the state of Washington, killing 87. In 1950, a British commercial Avro Tudor V, carrying Welsh rugby fans home from Dublin, crashed at Cardiff, killing 80.

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