Post by Major Destruction on Apr 20, 2006 13:09:11 GMT -5
Searchers Find Wreckage in Ga. After Renowned Test Pilot Scott Crossfield's Plane Goes Missing
Test Pilot Scott Crossfield sits in a centrifuge machine which duplicates the stress of extreme acceleration encountered by jet pilots at high altitudes, in this Feb. 28, 1958, file photo. A single-engine airplane registered to legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at Mach 2 and Mach 3, was missing Thursday, April 20, 2006, a day after it left Alabama for the Washington, D.C., area. The plane was last spotted on radar Wednesday in Georgia, north of Atlanta, the Civil Air Patrol's Georgia Wing said. (AP Photo/file)
04-20-2006 12:42 PM
RANGER, Ga. -- Crews searching for a missing airplane registered to legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield found the wreckage of a small plane with a body inside Thursday, but they didn't immediately identify the victim.
Searchers found the wreckage shortly after 1 p.m. in the mountains near Ranger, Ga., about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta, a Civil Air Patrol spokeswoman said.
Search teams had combed the forests of northern Georgia looking for the plane registered to Crossfield, the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound.
Officials did not immediately know who was flying the single-engine plane or whether Crossfield was aboard when it left Alabama for Virginia on Wednesday morning.
The plane was last spotted on radar later that day over Georgia, north of Atlanta, the Civil Air Patrol's Georgia Wing said. The Civil Air Patrol scheduled an afternoon news conference Thursday in the northern Georgia town of Ranger to discuss the search.
A man who answered the phone at Crossfield's home in Herndon, Va., declined to say whether Crossfield was missing.
Crossfield, now 84, was one of a group of civilian pilots assembled by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA, in the early 1950s.
Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager had already broken the speed of sound in his history-making flight in 1947. Crossfield set the Mach 2 record _ twice the speed of sound _ in 1953, when he reached 1,300 mph in NACA's Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.
In 1960, Crossfield reached Mach 2.97in an X-15 rocket plane launched from a B-52 bomber. The plane reached an altitude of 81,000 feet. At the time, Crossfield was working as a pilot and design consultant for North American Aviation, which made the X-15. He later worked as an executive for Eastern Airlines and Hawker Siddley Aviation.
More recently, Crossfield had a key role in preparations for the attempt to re-enact the Wright brothers' flight on the 100th anniversary of their feat near Kitty Hawk, N.C. He trained four pilots for the Dec. 17, 2003, flight attempt in a replica of the brothers' flyer, but poor weather prevented the take-off.
Among his many honors, Crossfield was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983.
The missing plane left Prattville, Ala., around 9 a.m. Wednesday en route to Manassas, Va. Search crews from the Civil Air Patrol were conducting an air and ground search along the flight path, focusing on a hilly, forested region of north-central Georgia.
Test Pilot Scott Crossfield sits in a centrifuge machine which duplicates the stress of extreme acceleration encountered by jet pilots at high altitudes, in this Feb. 28, 1958, file photo. A single-engine airplane registered to legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at Mach 2 and Mach 3, was missing Thursday, April 20, 2006, a day after it left Alabama for the Washington, D.C., area. The plane was last spotted on radar Wednesday in Georgia, north of Atlanta, the Civil Air Patrol's Georgia Wing said. (AP Photo/file)
04-20-2006 12:42 PM
RANGER, Ga. -- Crews searching for a missing airplane registered to legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield found the wreckage of a small plane with a body inside Thursday, but they didn't immediately identify the victim.
Searchers found the wreckage shortly after 1 p.m. in the mountains near Ranger, Ga., about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta, a Civil Air Patrol spokeswoman said.
Search teams had combed the forests of northern Georgia looking for the plane registered to Crossfield, the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound.
Officials did not immediately know who was flying the single-engine plane or whether Crossfield was aboard when it left Alabama for Virginia on Wednesday morning.
The plane was last spotted on radar later that day over Georgia, north of Atlanta, the Civil Air Patrol's Georgia Wing said. The Civil Air Patrol scheduled an afternoon news conference Thursday in the northern Georgia town of Ranger to discuss the search.
A man who answered the phone at Crossfield's home in Herndon, Va., declined to say whether Crossfield was missing.
Crossfield, now 84, was one of a group of civilian pilots assembled by the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the forerunner of NASA, in the early 1950s.
Air Force Capt. Chuck Yeager had already broken the speed of sound in his history-making flight in 1947. Crossfield set the Mach 2 record _ twice the speed of sound _ in 1953, when he reached 1,300 mph in NACA's Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket.
In 1960, Crossfield reached Mach 2.97in an X-15 rocket plane launched from a B-52 bomber. The plane reached an altitude of 81,000 feet. At the time, Crossfield was working as a pilot and design consultant for North American Aviation, which made the X-15. He later worked as an executive for Eastern Airlines and Hawker Siddley Aviation.
More recently, Crossfield had a key role in preparations for the attempt to re-enact the Wright brothers' flight on the 100th anniversary of their feat near Kitty Hawk, N.C. He trained four pilots for the Dec. 17, 2003, flight attempt in a replica of the brothers' flyer, but poor weather prevented the take-off.
Among his many honors, Crossfield was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1983.
The missing plane left Prattville, Ala., around 9 a.m. Wednesday en route to Manassas, Va. Search crews from the Civil Air Patrol were conducting an air and ground search along the flight path, focusing on a hilly, forested region of north-central Georgia.
