Barre, VT. – December 9, 1960 B-52 Crash

New England Aviation History ^ | May 18, 2018

[robowombat]

May 18, 2018 Barre, Vermont – December 9, 1960

B-52 Stratofortress U.S. Air Force Photo On December 9, 1960, a B-52 Stratofortress, (Ser. No. 55-0114), left Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, Massachusetts, for a training flight that would take it over upstate New York. While over the Adirondack Mountians the aircraft experienced a significant drop in altitude and the crew, believing the aircraft was going to crash, ejected. After all eight crewmen left the aircraft, the B-52 continued on for nearly one-hundred miles before crashing on the outskirts of Barre, Vermont, near the Plainfield town line. The plane exploded on impact and was blown to pieces. The crew were identified as: Pilot: Captain William T. Combs, 42, of Bristol, Va. Co-pilot: Lieutenant James Saravo, 25, of Newport, R.I. Navigator: Captain Ronald D. Little, 29, of Altoona, Pa. Radar Observer: Major Karl E. Keyes, 43, of Hyattsville, Md. Electronics Warfare Officer: 1st Lieutenant George M. Davis, of Pawtucket, R.I. Tail Gunner: Staff Sergeant Pierre J. Maheux, of Auburn, Maine. Instructor Pilot: Major Henry Luscomb, 41, of Simsbury, Ct. Airman 1C Charles E. Morris, 32, of Clearwater, Fl. The aircraft was part of the 348th Bomber Squadron, 99th Bombardment Group, based at Westover AFB. Most of the crew came down in the Schroon Lake region. Some were injured, and each faced dealing with below freezing temperatures before being rescued. All would later recover. After two days the only crewman unaccounted for was Staff Sergeant Maheux. His remains were found by a fisherman several months later on July 4, 1961. He’s buried in St. Peters Cemetery, in Lewiston, Maine. Sources: Springfield Union, “B52 From Westover Crashes In Vermont”, December 10, 1960, page 1. Springfield Union, “6 Westover Fliers Found; Search Is On For 2 Others”, December 12, 1960 Springfield Union, “Seventh Man Rescued In AF Plane Crash”, www.findagrave.com memorial #121568372

[Responsibility2nd]

Very weird story. This does not pass the smell test. I had to go find out more about this. Lookee here.
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=48323

[SoCal Pubbie]

Read the link. That is weird!

[robowombat]

I should have suspected something with a 42 yr old USAF captain at the throttle. How did he survive being in SAC in the LeMay era?

[Roccus]

Only time I'd ever even seen a B-52 was in Oct, 1962 at Burlington International Airport (VT).

It was during the Cuban Missle Crisis and several had been dispursed there from the Plattsburgh SAC base (NY)

[Chode]

yeah that’s some weird sh1t right there that is

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Des Moines, IA airport was home to the Iowa Air Guard back in the 1970s/80s.
The Guard held an annual airshow and invited the crew of a Brit Vulcan bomber that were visiting SAC near Omaha.

The local radio stations did play by play of the Vulcan's take off and figured the flight to Des Moines would take less than 30 minutes.

I was standing in our back yard watching for the Vulcan's arrival when it came screeching overhead.

At the last minute, the pilot had been switched to the shorter cross-wind runway and, just in time, he realized he was running out of pavement.

The Vulcan's engines left four columns of black smoke as the big delta wing made a pass over the down town, came round and made a second try which was perfect.

Wife, 7 year old son and I drove over to the air show and met the pilot, a member of the 44th Rhodesia Squadron from the UK. I still have a picture of the guy with son Jeremy on his shoulder.

[Vermont Lt]

I grew up in Springfield. Seeing B52s was so common here that you barely noticed them. When a relativ from out of town came over, they would constantly be staring up at the planes as they flew in and out of Westover.

My office was at the end of the flight path during the Gulf War in ‘91. It was the first time I had seen so many large planes flying at such a rate. And even a couple of BUFFs flew over. It was quite nostalgic.

[Roccus]

I grew up under one of the approaches to La Guardia. The landing lights would come through my bedroom window in the evening. The biggest planes we saw back then were the Super Connies....until the jet age.
At first the only jets we heard or saw were military out of Floyd Bennett NAS in Brooklyn. As for commercial jets, the first ones I remember going over the house were 727s. There might have been some others before them, but I just don’t remember.

[KC Burke]

I've told the story here but I will repeat it.

In the 70s I traveled Kansas and Missouri in construction.

This was the time when the S. Dakota, Nebraska, Wichita and Texas air bases were involved in B-52 upgrade training. They had installed the ground-contour flying equipment used to take B-52s under Soviet radar and used to test it over the scarcely settled Flint Hills region of Kansas.

I was driving a lonely highway early one morning a KABOOOOM, appearing in my windshield only a hundred feet above me was a giant B-52. In an instant it had come and gone. The shock, the noise, the blacking out of the sky was all enough to disorient me so bad I had to pull over to the shoulder and take a bit to get over the impact.

I have been on perimeter service roads at the end of runways and had 747 and 727s fly over me on final and on take-off. This was a fourth of that clearance and I did not see it coming in the undulating hills.

[mad_as_he$$]

Back in the early 80”s I was fishing in the sticks in Wyoming. I heard this low rumble and a BUFF appeared at about 200 feet roaring up the valley I was in. Hot on his ass was an F-15.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Governor Ray of Iowa was invited to speak at the dedication of Iowa’s first ethanol plant in SE Iowa back in 1980 or ‘81.

Leonard Conrad of Conrad Industries, maker of corn bins had put up an ethanol still, fired with coal from the family coal mine in Monroe County, south of Knoxville.

Just as Governor Ray began to speak, a B-52 floated silently into view. The governor was heard to say, “Leonard, I don’t know how you planned that...”