Post Script

This post is really a post script. Searching through files for pictures to include in future posts - a seemingly never-ending task - I found this one, which conforms to the record and blows another hole in the legend of my vaunted memory.

In the previous post I commented on the hulk of a crashed airplane, and even provided an X - marking the spot - in the satellite photo where the hulk rested throughout my tour of duty on Adak. I remembered the crash as a Navy C-118 (DC-6), but the record suggested it was a Navy P-3 Orion.

I say "suggested" because of the timing of the crash, about six months before I arrived on the island. The hulk could have been from another wreck, but it's unlikely. So, the record refers to BuNo 151363, a P-3A, the record in this case being the Aviation Safety Foundation database. The narrative from the Aviation Safety Foundation website described the accident:

At rotate speed the smoke hatch blew open. The takeoff was aborted but did not decelerate as expected. The pilot steered the Orion to the left off the runway, to avoid overrunning into the water. It went through a ditch in a right yaw and the right wing separated from the airplane and burst into flames.

A meager enough description, to be sure. I'll bet the crew members, all of whom reportedly survived, all gave much more exciting narratives of the incident over the years. . .

Anyway, the picture above was taken from outside the GCA unit one evening as a KC-97 from the New York Air National Guard was touching down, transiting Adak en route to Japan. True, it's not a particularly good picture, but in the left half of the picture the errant P-3, previously referred to as "the hulk", sits next to the runway - right where I put that "X" - welcoming new arrivals.