Tired Searchers Renew Hunt for Big Bomber in Ravines of Nicholas County After Native of Village Near Poe Tell of Seeing Airship Succumb to Elements in Storm Saturday Night.
Crew May be Buried in Deep Ravine of Nicholas Wilderness.
More Than 400 in Searching Parties Yesterday . Hunt Will be Resumed Early this Morning; Plane was Last Seen as
Nose Dive Turned to Tail Spin When it Tried to Flee Before Great Storm.
Charleston, W.Va., September 1921
The fate of five army airmen, members of the crew of Martin bombing Plane No. 5, United States Army, that was seen to
crash to earth near Poe, Nicholas County, in a severe electric storm late Saturday afternoon, remained deep in mystery at
midnight Sunday. Searching parties who started out in early morn and labored till late at night, failed to reveal any definite
information as to the whereabouts of the plane or whether the men on board had suffered death. Four airplanes of the fleet
sent here by the war department in connection with the federal intervention into the Logan-Boone warfare scoured the country
where the machine was reported to have fallen, but not the slightest trace of the plane was found. The character of the country
in the neighborhood of Poe is very hilly, heavily wooded, filled with many deep ravines and practically uninhabited. There is
one tract, comprising about 1,000 acres, without a single inhabitant, as far as the outside world knows, and it was through this
region that many of the parties made their searches during Sunday. Natives in the vicinity expressed belief that the plane could
have fallen into one of these deep ravines and it would be several days before searchers would come upon it.
The five men comprising the crew were: Lieutenant Harry L. Speck, pilot; Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, observer, and three enlisted
men, Sergeant Arthur Brown, of Kentucky; Corporal Alexander Hazleton, Wilmington, Del., and Private Howard, San
Francisco. Reports reaching army headquarters here substantiated earlier reports that the plane fell in the vicinity of Poe,
according to an announcement from officials that residents of Glenn Falls, near Poe, claim to have seen the machine drop to
earth in the vicinity of Poe. Beyond this statement that the plane fell, the informants at headquarters could throw little additional
light on the situation. The search that was forced to be abandoned with nightfall will be resumed with a systematic manner
early Monday, headquarters officials announced. It was stated by army officers in the Vicinity of Poe, extending over between
20 and 30 miles was covered by the searching parties Sunday.
It was not limited to an official one, for in addition to the men sent out by Major Davenport Johnson, in command of the air
service detachment here, large forces of citizens joined the hunt. It was estimated that more than 400 persons were out
searching and local telephone exchanges were called upon to convey information of the accident to various places in the hope
of gaining additional information.
The plane was in a detachment of three, Nos. 5, 22 and 24, en route from Charleston to Langley Field, Va., upon a return
flight to the home port. The three machines were flying through the storm at a rate of 70 miles an hour, and at an altitude of
approximately 4,000 feet. According to a member of the crew of no. 24, the missing plane made a left bank, with the evident
intention of giving up the battle with the storm and returning to Charleston, when the machine suddenly fell into a nose-dive
and before recovery could be made was into a tail-spin. The plane never came out of the tail-spin, it was said by a member of
the crew of No.24, who witnessed the crash to earth, and landed in a deep ravine, with the nose of the machine crashed into
the earth and the tail projecting back at almost a perpendicular angle.
Plane No. 24 immediately circled around the spot, but the hills and topography of the country there would not permit this
machine to fly any lower, and after searching for a possible landing space, No. 24 was forced to skirt the storm and land for
her own safety near Pt. Pleasant. Plane No. 22 was also forced to land near Williamsburg in Greenbrier County. Members of
the crew on No. 24 could not get close enough to the earth to distinguish the fate of the men on No. 5. They did see the plane
take fire almost immediately after the crash to ground, it was said.