Army Plane Missing and Five Believed Dead;
Armed Men Yield Weapons to U.S. Troops
Machine Plunges to Earth Ablaze in Nicholas Hills, Companion Fliers Report. No Definite Word
from Occupants of Missing Plane is Received and Five are Believed to Have Perished While on
Way Back to Base. Two Companion Planes are Diverted from Their Course.
Charleston, W.Va., September 1921
The fate of two army aviators and three enlisted men, on the Martin bomber No. 5, which crashed
to the ground in the vicinity of Poe, Nicholas county, late Saturday afternoon, remained a mystery at
midnight. The men on board the missing plane were:
Lieutenant Harry L. Speck, pilot.
Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, observer.
Sergeant Arthur Brown, Kentucky.
Corporal Alexander Hazleton, Wilmington, Del.
Private Howard, San Francisco, Cal.
Plane No. 5 was one of three in a fleet of bombers which had been ordered to proceed to the home
port at Langley Field, Newport News, Va., from Charleston. The other two planes in the fleet were
Nos. 22 and 24, both Martin bombers of similar type. Members of the crew of No. 24, which was
flying in the wake of No. 5, reported upon their return to Charleston that they were in clear view of
the accident at the time it occurred. Plane No. 5, they report, was flying at approximately 70 miles
an hour and at an altitude of 4,000 feet.
" Plane No. 5 was directly in front of our plane," said Private Ryston F. zambro, Hagerstown, Md.,
a member of the crew of No. 24, in recounting the affair last night, "and from our observation we
saw that the pilot was making a definite left bank, with the evident intention of returning to the field
in Charleston. The storm had been raging with such vigor at the time that it was apparent decision
had been made to return to Charleston instead of attempting a battle with the storm en route to
Langley Field.
Sees Plane Plunge Earthward
"After making the left bank he went into a nose dive, but before he could recover was swept into a
tail spin and fell directly to the ground. For the size of the plane and her weight, the fall to the ground
was comparatively slow. She fell straight downward without deviating from her course. The country
in that vicinity is very mountainous and hilly, but strangely enough No. 5 crashed downward into a
ravine that forms a road in these parts. As soon as we saw her fall we circled around and glided
down as far as safe flying in this region would permit, and saw that No. 5 had crashed into the
ground nose first, with her tail projecting up in the air at an almost horizontal angle."
"No sooner had the plane crashed than she was wrapped in flames, apparently from an explosion in
the gasoline tanks. We could not ascertain definitely the fate of the men on board because of the
impossibility of getting any closer to the ground and the darkness of the storm." While No. 24 did
not get into similar difficulty in the storm, flying was not easy, according to the crew, for, as Private
Zambro expressed it, No. 24 was finding it "tough going." The pilot of No. 24, Lieutenant
McReynolds, found landing impossible and directed his plane out around the storm, landing some
time later near Point Pleasant, about 40 miles from Poe. Other members of the crew on board No.
24 who saw the accident were Lieutenant Morris, observer; Sergeant Eugene Bidell and Private
Zambro.
Army headquarters in Charleston established since the war department took action in the
Logan-Boone warfare could throw little additional light on the missing plane late last night. The only
report received there was similar to the one made by Private Zambro, and officials at headquarters
could not definitely say the men had lost their lives. Hopes for their safety was at best skeptical.
Information from Summersville, about ten miles from where the plane was reported to have fallen,
was at best limited as to details. According to an opinion expressed by a Summersville citizen,
talking with The Gazette over telephone last night after the accident, the country in the vicinity of the
accident is very rugged and hilly, and near the region is 1,000 acres of the wildest sort of ground,
not known to have on it any inhabitants. An organized search will be made today, it was announced
by Sergeant Barb of the state police, in charge of the substation at Richwood, 32 miles away, who
left Richwood at midnight for Poe, where he will take out the searching party early this morning. All
efforts to make a search last night were given up because of the exceptional difficulties to be
experienced in such a country. Richwood is about thirty miles from Poe.
If the theory expressed by army aviators, that the plane was wrested from control of the pilot during
the storm bear up, when Barb and the searching party completes its investigation Sunday, the
accident will be similar to the one occurring in Maryland about two months ago, when several
persons were killed, among them army officers of high rank. Bomber No. 5 was equipped only with
five machine guns, no bombs having been taken on board when the plane departed from Charleston
for its home field. When it is in action, its capacity permits the carrying of twenty bombs on board
along with the machine guns and ammunition. Opinion expressed by airmen was that the men would
have little chance to escape death or most serious injury in such a fall.
It was believed that the force of the fall to the ground would have rendered them unconscious, and with the plane taking fire as it did in this instance, the men on board would probably have suffered severe burns before regaining consciousness. Because during the recent war men have been known to have fallen in planes from as great and greater altitudes, and, through some strange hand of fate, made miraculous escapes, headquarters officials would not give up hope for the men until after the investigation is made Sunday. Telephone messages to the Gazette early this morning said that a party composed of Jake McCarthy, Delbert Hamilton, Lee Reese, Kenneth McClung and Fred Amick left Richwood at midnight to hunt for the missing bomber. They started for Poe in an automobile. Attempts to secure information from Summersville, ten miles from Poe, were unavailing last night. Residents of that town knew that the airplane had fallen, but could furnish no details, as the county lines in the direction of Poe were reported to be out of commission.