ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 98126
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| Date: | Tuesday 24 October 1944 |
| Time: | |
| Type: |  Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress |
| Owner/operator: | United States Army Air Force (USAAF) |
| Registration: | 42-38000 |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: / Occupants: |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | 5 mi W of Worthington, MN -
 United States of America
|
| Phase: | Unknown |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | |
Worthington Daily Globe Oct. 24, 1944. B-17 low over Worthington.
The bomber was experiencing trouble never made public. At 6 a.m. the plane began a series of distress calls that continued through 20 minutes. The crew hoped to rouse someone at Worthington’s airport. They had learned of the airport last December, but they could not find it. Round and round they flew, north to south, east to west.
At 6:30 a.m., 4,000 feet above Bigelow Township, the captain told his crew to abandon ship. One by one the young airmen leaped and pulled rip cords on their parachutes.
One flier came down in Lake Ocheda, near the Vernon Madison farm. The Madisons provided him with dry clothing and laid his gear out to dry. Another airmen also came down in the lake, not far from where his buddy was hanging in a tree. The two were near the Barney Fink farm — the Finks invited their drop-in guests to breakfast. The Finks’ young boys stood with mouths open and eyes open wide.
All of the crew of 10 made safe landings. Their abandoned plane plunged into a cornfield five miles west of Worthington’s TB sanatorium and skidded for a quarter-mile, crunched and then burst into flames. Exploding, 50-caliber shells whizzed from the wreckage.
Worthington was awed, needless to say. There was a scramble to see the fallen plane, but guards from Sioux Falls arrived and pushed back onlookers.
It was a coincidence that one of the crewmen, Cpl. K.L. Morthew, was from Jackson. His mother drove over to see him.
Henry Pfeil told me lately that, somehow, the crew came together at the Harold Selberg farm, which was at the Highway 59-60 Y south of Worthington.
“Kate Selberg made a meal for the whole bunch of them,” Henry remembers.
Giant crash trucks from Sioux Falls came to take away wreckage. One truck parked at the corner of 10th Street and Fourth Avenue. Residents filled the intersection for a glimpse of the tail section of a fallen B-17.Crashed; crew bailed out.
Sources:
http://www.aviationarchaeology.com/src/db.asp
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 24-Sep-2018 10:27 | Anon. | Updated [Narrative] |
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