B-24H 41-28874 crash in Catalina Mountains Tucson Arizona on March 18 1944

B-24H 41-28874 crash in Catalina Mountains Tucson Arizona on March 18, 1944

B-24H was on a flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to MIdland, Texas on March 18, 1944. While traveling southeast from Phoenix, the plane encountered severe weather and attempted to return to Phoenix. According to the AAF mishap report, “there was moderate turbulence, probably hail and icing conditions in the area at the time. Pilot was at too low an altitude and either during or immediately after his turn clipped the left rudder, and probably the underside of the fuselage on a peak, knocking the left rudder completely off the plane...The plane careened on down a canyon finally losing the right wing outer panel, at which time it turned over and struck anther peak with the top of the fuselage. Check out Warbird Show on iTunes for a podcast I did about this crash.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/b-24h-41-28874-crash-north/id408763490?i=1000093041740&mt=2

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/warbird-show/id408763490

Fatally injured:
Judson T. Holmes
Randolph Aspinwall
James P. Smith
Merle O. Norlie
Lloyd G. Kadel
William A. Scully
I. Rybinsky
Harlin S. Darby
Howard W. Binne
Charles Bishop

While revisitng the crash site several years ago, I came across James Patrick Smith’s identification tag (dog tag). The dog tag was returned to his family.

To the left is a photo of James Patrick Smith, Bombardier, taken on March 17, 1944, photo courtesy Jann James.

Oxygen bottle

Might have been a battery box. I don’t think it was an ammo can.

The crash site is spread over a considerable distance in the Catalinas Mountains. Along the path of the crash site are two smelter operations where aluminum debris was melted down into ingots and hauled off the mountain site. One of the smelter operations in on the right side of this photo.

Portion of one of the rudders.

B-24 in-flight, U.S. Air Force photo.

Army Air Forces Type F-1 Airspeed Indicator.

This looks like part of a damaged .50 caliber machine gun.

Part of the bomb bay door.