Wreck of Seamaster II

High over northern Delaware one afternoon last week streaked the U.S. Navy's unique bid for air supremacy--the experimental XP6M-I Seamaster, a giant multi-jet, $6.5 million seaplane proudly described by Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke as the "fastest low-altitude attack aircraft in existence today." Fifty-two minutes before, trailed by an escort plane, the Seamaster had taken off from the Glenn L. Martin plant at Middle River, Md., on a routine test flight. As it yowled along at 22,000 to 25,000 ft. it was a thing of demonic beauty; with its 100-ft. swept-back wings, its slender 134-ft. hull and its four Allison J-71 jet engines, the seagoing bomber was capable of carrying a 30,000 Ib. pay load to 40,000ft. heights and at speeds over 600 m.p.h. Then, in an instant, the plane burst into flames, went out of control into a steep dive, crashed in a field near Wilmington, Del. The four-man civilian crew parachuted to safety.

The crash was a double blow to the Navy: last December the Seamaster's sister ship and prototype also exploded on a test flight and plunged into Chesapeake Bay. Reason for the first crash, in which all four crewmen were killed: malfunction of the tail-control surfaces that forced the sea-jet into a wild loop while flying close to the speed of sound.

To Navy planners the blow was especially bitter, for around the Seamasters they have built their hopes of adding a new dimension to long-range air warfare. The hope: the Seamaster could easily base in any hidden cove in the world, there be supplied by submarine, make its A-bomb runs and then disappear again to sea, where its chances of being spotted would be minimized. The advantages over land-and-carrier-based aircraft were so obvious that both the Air Force and the Army have been examining the Martin prototypes with interest.

So basic is the Seamaster to Navy planning that soon after the crash of the first model it awarded the Martin Co. a $102 million contract to build 24 more. Last week the Navy's initial reaction to the second crash was to go ahead with the order unless the survivors testify there is something radically wrong with the design. At week's end Navy and Martin engineers were still picking up pieces and trying to find out what had gone wrong.

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