August 9, 1951 The Syracuse Post Standard
TWO JET FLIERS STILL BEING SOUGHT

FORESTPORT, AUG 8 (AP) - Air Force troops comed six miles of thick woods near here today in search of two fliers believed to have bailed out of a jet training plane

By nightfall the 400 searchers had found no trace of the pair or their plane, but the hunt was continuing.

The fliers were on a training flight from Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, Mass., to Griffiss Air Force Base at Rome when they disappeared yeaterday.

A Griffiss spokesman said the pilot had reported his fuel supply almost gone after making two unsuccessful passes at the field in a heavy mist.  He had been ordered to head northwest and bail out, the spokesman saqid.

At 6:03 p.m. the pilot reported that he and his co-pilot were abandoning the craft.  A guard at an Air Force directional tower near this Northern New York village said he heard a plane crash at about the same time.

August 10, 1951 The Syracuse Post Standard
MISSING AIRMEN MAY BE DOWN IN FORESTPORT WOODS

FORRESTPORT. AUG. 9 (AP)  - Six airmen from Griffiss Air Force base at Rome started an all night listening vigil in dense woods near here for cires of two missing fliers after a farmer and his two children reported hearing calls for help. 

The farmer, John Luchsinger, told state police that his children, Joyce, 15, and Richard, 11 had heard voices in dense woods beside their farm home near this Adirondack mountain community.

Luchsinger said he went to the area, and also heard cries, which he said sounded like calls for help.

Darkness stymied efforts of state police, airmen and volunteers to search the area tonight.

Planes and helicopters flew most of the day over the area seeking the two air force flyers, missing since Tuesday when they apparently bailed out of a fuel short T-33 jet trainer.

After darkness cut short hte search tonight, officials at Griffiss sent the detail of six airmen to Luchsinger's farm.   They were ordered to sit quietly in the area, and listen for voices until daybreak when the air and ground search will be resumed.

Saturday August 11, 1951
Searchers Fear Airmen Rode Down With Plane.

Forestport. – Comencing the third day of a search for two missing Air Force fliers believed down in this area, Bell aircraft Co. officials aiding in the efforts with to helicopters expressed the opinion last night that the airmen "rode down with their aircraft."

Air Force men at Griffis Air Force Base, Rome, believe the fliers parachuted from their jet training plane Tuesday after they were advised to abandon the plane when bad weather kept them from landing at Rome.

The fliers were told to fly north to this vicinity and shortly afterward the pilot radioed back he had 10 gallons of fuel left and "we’re getting out of this thing."

A search was started Wednesday and airmen in planes and of foot combed the triangle between Boonville – Hinckley – Old Forge.

Bell helicopters at Buffalo were offered the U.S. Air Force to aid in the search and arrived at Rome Wednesday afternoon.

For three days, the helicopters combed the 500-square-mile area in the traangle, and asnwered repeated calls from regular aircraft in the search to look closer at objects sighted.

A Bell official said last night that "even if the fliers were able to land without any trouble in parachuting, the area is so dense with forest that it might take them two weeks to reach a road.

The Bell official said that if the fliers "rode their craft down, they could easily bury themselves from view because the plane would slide under the forest cover for some distance and thus hiding any sign of a crash."

He said the pilot of the jet training plane had radioed he was at an altitude of 8500 feet when they made plans to bail out.

August 12, 1951  The Syracuse Post Standard
Bodies of 2 lost airmen found in wrecked plane.

FORESTPORT, Aug. 11.-The burned plane and bodies of two airmen, missing since Tuesday when their jet training plane ran out if gas, were found at 5 p. m. today in a swampland about five miles southeast of this village and Alder Creek.

The wreckage was discovered by an air-sea rescue plane from Westover Field, Mass., according to the public information officer at Griffiss Air Force Base at Rome. A ground crew, notified by radio to go to the scene, reported back that both fliers were dead.

Victims Identified

The fliers have been identified As Maj. C H. Imschweiler, 34. of Schuylkill Haven. Pa. The pilot and Lt. John A. Carver Jr., 30, of Ann Arbor, Mich.

The boides were found in the charred wreckage about three hours after the air-sea rescue craft first sighted the downed plane at 2 p. m.

The pilot, First Lt. Robert Powers of Concord. Mass. reported that his navigator, Capt. William G. Horney of Vineland. N. J, and his engineer. Sgt. Charles Thomas Augusta. Me., spotted the wreckage.

Griffiss Air Force Base announced the Jet plane apparently had exploded on impact and burned in a small clearing deep in heavily wooded area.

The air-sea rescue plane is attached to the Fifth Air Rescue Squadron at Westover Field, Mass.

The ground crew that went to the rescue reported back that the area of the tragedy was almost completely shielded by trees and that it was a miracle the wreckage was sighted at all.

DIFFICULT Terrain

Due to the terrain, Griffiss officials said they could not estimate how long it would take to bring the bodies out of the woods.

The airmen were found near the end of fourth day of search for them. They had made two attempts Tuesday night to land at Griffiss Field, but were prevented by bad weather. Griffiss Field advised them to fly north of Rome and abandon their craft.

Later the airmen radioed back they were bailing out. However. There was no explanation yesterday from Griffiss officials why the men had changed their decision and had ridden down" with their plane.

Pine Camp officials said 160 Guardsmen and seven officers on Summer Maneuvers had been sent to Boonville, but Griffiss Air Force Base officers disclosed nearly 1,000 Guardsmen and Air Force men were probing a densely-wooded 500 square-mile area northeast of Rome.

Searc h operations were doubly difficult because of fallen trees and tangled masses of brush as a result of last fall's hurricane, Griffiss officers stated'

Routine Flight

The two fliers were on a routine round robin flight Tuesday night from Otis Air Force Base, Falmouth

Mass., to Griffiss Base when they were prevented from landing by bad weather. They were instructed to ta ke a course northeast of the field and abandon their craft. Later they radioed Griffiss field they were balling out of their jet trainer.

A total of 32 planes and at least 1200 men had conducted the search. The ground workers Include 200 GAFB men and officers and 500 to 1,000 Pine Camp servicemen, officials said.

The latter fanned out from Lowville, some going west to Boonville, Alder Creek and Forestport and

others going east to Big moose, 0ld Forge and Forestport.

Those from the Rome base walked northeast to Atwell, 0ld Forge and Forestport.

August 12, 1951  The Syracuse Herald Journal
2 Found Dead in Plane

The bodies of two missing Air Force reserve officers were found in the burned wreckage of their jet plane near Forestport about 5 P.M. yesterday, as 1,000 National Guardsmen combed the woods in the Adirondack foothills.

Officials at Griffiss Air Base at Rome said the plane was discovered in a heavily wooded area six to eight miles southeast of Forestport. Both bodies were in the craft. Details were not immediately available.

The pair were Lt. John Carver, of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Maj. C. H. Imschwiler, of Schuylkill Haven, Pa.

Carver, the pilot of the jet trainIng plane, radioed Griffiss Air Base last Tuesday that he and his passenger were going to ball out because the plane was out of fuel. Bad weather had prevented their landing In Rome.

The plane was on a training flight from Otis Field, Cape Cod, Mass. State Troopers, forest rangers, and volunteers had tramped through the woods during daylight hours In an effort to locate the Plane.

(From the Boonville Herald Front Page, Thursday, August 16th, 1951)

Intensive 5-Day Search Ended As

Jet Plane and Airmen Are Found

Plane Plummeted to Earth Near Forestport; Pilots Dead

Special to the Herald

By Hilda Avery

Forestport: The culmination of one of the most intensive searches ever staged in upstate New York ended about three o'clock Saturday afternoon when the wreckage of a jet T-33 was sighted from the air and ground rescue squads were directed to the area by radio and by the circling of a rescue plane.

The charred bodies of the two airmen, Lt. John Carver, Jr., 30, of Ann Arbor, Mich. and Major C. H. Imschweiler, the pilot, of Schuylkill Haven, Pa. were found pinned in the wreckage, their seatbelts still fastened.

The two men were on a routine flight from Otis Air Force Base, Falmouth, Mass., to Griffis Air Force Base, Rome, Tuesday night when they radioed the Rome base that they were unable to land because of ground fog and rain and that their fuel supply was low. They were ordered to bail out. The last word received from the plane was that the men would head the plane northeast and attempt to jump.

This type of plane was not equipped with ejector seats nor the new ground approach control system to aid planes in bad weather.

Residents Hear Crash

Residents east of Forestport station reported hearing the plane and also the crash and Robert Coscomb notified the Loran Tower. He, his brother-in-law, and his father, Perley Coscomb, formed the nucleus of a civilian group which searched for five hours in the rain that night. Men from the Griffis Air Force Base also searched the area that night until relieved Wednesday morning by new searchers.

Intensive Search

On Wednesday, 200 men from the air base, with about 50 civilians from Forestport acting as guides, conducted an intensive search between North Lake and Bellingertown roads, which was the area in which the crash had been heard. Lt. Lester G. Eggleston, Sgt. O. H. Gardinier, Troopers T. J. Hennessey and Stephen Hines, and Forest Ranger Lawrence Liddle were members of searching parties whose civilian personnel included Boy Scout Troop 36, Philip Hahn, Earl and Albert Winters, Harlow Watts, George Morrison, Wallace Roberts, Robert Roberts, Hubert Bellinger, Arthur Berg and many others from the area.

When the rain and fog lifted, planes were flown over the area and an Air-Sea Rescue Ship arrived from Westover Field, Mass., with paramedics equipped to bail out with aid at any sign of the lost men.

Search Shifts

Thursday afternoon the search shifted to the Woodgate-Hawkinsville Road after Joyce and Dick Luchsinger heard someone calling in the woods across from their home. They notified the State Police, who after investigating contacted the airbase. The Air-Sea Rescue Ship circled the area, as did two helicopters which were flown here from Buffalo. Sgt. Walter Millard kept contact with the rescue plane while an unidentified airman from the Rome base and Pfc. Alfred Beddo, Westover Field, made an intensive search of the area. A false report of the locating of the wreckage near Stittville ended the search for that night. What was sighted proved to be a large piece of metal, probably from a roof.

Friday, the search was taken up again near the Luchsinger home, with men from the air base at Rome, State Police and Conservation Department men assisting.

When the State Police were told that a man building a camp on the Reeds Mill-Wilmurt Road had heard the plane, a probable route from the air base to the Forestport area was charted on the map and the points where residents reported hearing the plane were located. These residences, among them Robert Coscomb's, Albert Brucker's, Otto Petersen's and Mrs. John Farrell at Ridgetop, seemed to point in a definite direction and the search was resumed in the Forestport area.

Plane Sighted

Saturday about 250 men from the Rome air base accompanied by almost every available man from Forestport, combed the Myers Hill area and the Tamarack Swamp which is near Black River above Kayuta Lake. Nearly 1,000 men from Pine Camp centered a search near the Masonic Home Camp and when that proved futile, they were about to start a search from there to Big Moose Lake. Forestport Ranger Lawrence Liddle and Lt. Eggleston of the State Police were with this party as were numerous civilian guides. A slight delay for the soldiers to refill their water canteens proved just long enough for word to reach them that the plane had been sighted.

The SA-16 Rescue Ship, which had been flying over the Forestport area, was piloted by First Lt. Rovert E. Powers, Concord, Mass. Shortly after three o'clock Saturday afternoon his navigator, Capt. William G. Horney, Vineland, N.J., and his engineer, Sgt. Charles Thomas, of Augusta, Maine, spotted the wreckage almost simultaneously. They notified the ground crews by radio.

None of the ground crews was in that area although it had been searched Friday. The wrecked plane was sighted in the deep woods about four miles east of Forestport Station and about a mile and a half south of the Bellingertown road. The trees were so dense that airmen said it was a miracle that they were able to sight it at all.

About an hour and a half later, two ground search parties converged on the spot. One party was lead by Arthur Berg, guard at the Loran tower, included LeRoy Roberts, Robert Roberts, and Edward Peach. In the other were Lt. Robert W. Coutier, who was in charge of the entire ground crew, Sgt. Walter Millard and Pfc. Alfred Beddo, of Westover Field, Sgt. O. H. Gardinier, Lt. Eggleston and Trooper Stephen Hines of the State Police, Dewey Lyon and Kenneth Morey.

Plane a Twisted Heap

The plane apparently had just dropped from the sky and had not nosed in gradually. It is believed to have exploded on impact and burned. All that was left was a twisted heap of metal.  A medical crew from Griffis Air Base was lost for a short time in the woods enroute to the scene of the tragedy, but were guided in by shouts and shots from the crew who were awaiting their arrival. The bodies were brought out at 9:30 and Lt. Eggleston and Trooper Hines stood guard until the military police arrived.

The North Lake Road was lined with the curious and a line of visitors visited the scene Sunday.

During the search a field kitchen was sent from the Rome Air Base and both military and civilian searchers were fed. The Women's Auxiliary of the American Legion also sent food to the men.

An Aircraft Accident Board from the Griffis Air Force Base at Rome visited the scene Sunday. Any parts salvageable will be saved and the plane then disposed of, an air base official said Monday. An investigation is being conducted to determine why the men failed to bail out before the plane crashed.