We immediately broke off our mission to accompany the disabled aircraft into Hilo airport, but to make matters worse we flew into some very bad weather. Suddenly that was shattered by a report from one of the other planes having engine problems and then soon after a report of engine failure and that they were losing altitude. Lee Webster gave this account of the accident, “I was just becoming accustomed to the eerie feeling of night flying by the time we started our second leg of the triangle toward a point somewhere off the northern tip of the island and to this point radio contact led us to believe we were in good shape. On one of the other B-18s in the group was Lee Webster, a Flight Engineer, on his first night navigation mission. The crew later described the crash as a “miracle escape.” The next morning they discovered the plane's nose section jutted out over a 75-foot deep ravine. One airman who was riding in the bombardier compartment located in the aircraft nose section opened the lower hatch and tried to lower himself out to find his feet did not touch anything solid, so he pulled back inside and warned the rest of the crew to not attempt dropping out of that hatch until daylight. Following the crash the crew made sure that all power to the aircraft was turned off and then tried to get some rest. During the night the crew endured cold and rain in total darkness. The crew was shook up, but m miraculously only one crew member suffered a minor injury. I also located an eye witness and documented his story of the crash. There is a noticeable difference from 2000. Update: I found more areal pictures of the crash site taken June 2004.
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