Hampton, Virginia, USA (Phoebus)
1966 - TWO DIE AS PLANE SMASHES HOMES. 60 LEFT HOMELESS IN VIRGINIA. MARINE BOMBERS IN MID-AIR COLLISION.

Hampton, Va., (AP) - Officials said today they were convinced there were no more dead or injured in the rubble of a suburban neighborhood devastated by the flaming crash of a Marine Corps attack bomber hurtling from an in-flight collision.

Police said two persons - a 30 year old mother, MARY GALLANT and her 19-month-old son DONALD - died. Forty-four persons were treated for injuries, mainly burns. Ten remained hospitalized.

Sixty persons were left homeless in the total destruction of 10 houses and damage to 17 others.

None Reported Missing.
Hampton Police Chief L. H. Nicholson said, "We have gone through all the destroyed and damaged houses and found no additional bodies. I don't believe we will find any more. We have no reports of missing persons."

Nicholson and Fire Marshall F. F. Hopkins both used the same terms to describe their feelings about the light loss of life in such a densely populated area - "miraculous."

The two-seater A6 Intruder light bomber plowed into the development at 8:57 p.m. Monday night. Seconds earlier, it had collided at 400 miles an hour with another Intruder at 2,000 feet. The other plane fell into Chesapeake Bay.

Path Clearly Marked.
The evidence of the plane's path was clearly marked. The jet swept in on a northeast heading, clipped a 50-foot oak tree at midpoint and sheared off a side of the GALLANT'S shingle cottage.

The bodies of MRS. GALLANT and her son were found in the kitchen.

All of the four Marines aboard the two aircraft ejected safely and landed near the second bomber in Chesapeake Bay off Norfolk. Three were picked up by a Coast Guard helicopter, the fourth by a private boat.

The crash occurred not far from the sprawling Fordham shopping center and the homes of many Air Force and Army men from nearby Langley Air Force Base and Ft. Monroe.

Engine Buries In Crater.
Witnesses said the aircraft came down at a 45-degree angle just off Sergeant Street, where its engine buried itself in a deep crater.
The wings and portions of the flaming fuselage continued on, with parts of the fuel tanks, for two blocks, mowing down homes as they went and setting some of them on fire. Bits of the plane were found 5 blocks away at the shopping center, where a wheel plunged through the roof of a bowling alley and injured three persons.

MRS. GALLANT'S husband was on his way home when the house in which his wife and infant son awaited his arrival was destroyed. Two other Gallant children were visiting neighbors and escaped.

The marine bombers, out of Cherry Point, N.C., were en route to Patuxent River, Md., and had left their base at 6:30 p.m. The Fleet Marine Force Atlantic said it had no immediate explanation for the collision and that the planes were on a routine weather mission.
Moments after the pilotless bomber crashed in flames, ambulances were speeding to the area from Hampton, Newport News, Buckroe Beach, Langley AFB, Phoebus, and the counties of Northampton and York.

Rescue squadmen, doctors, detachments from Langley and Ft. Monroe, and firemen hurried in. By the time they arrived, hundreds of persons had gathered to watch the holocaust.

Police sealed off the area to prevent possible looting and servicemen from nearby military bases patrolled the area.

Power company workers labored throughout the night to restore electricity in an estimated 500 homes. Wearing helmets, they bobbed up and down to the tops of utility poles in aerial lifts under the big floodlights.

The burned-out hulks of half a dozen automobiles, plus clothing, bedsheets, dishes, pots and pans and every conceivable type of house furniture were scattered around.

Pieces of the shattered plane lay in yards and even on the rooftops of a score of homes for several blocks.

The rescued Marine fliers were 1st Lt. Charles Clark, 24, of Asheville, N.C., and 1st Lt. James Engstrom, 25, of Durham, N.C., the pilots; and bombardier-navigators Capt. James Andherst of Plankinton, S.D., and 2nd Lt. William Llewellyn of Cleveland, Ohio.

None of the four was hurt.

Port Arthur News
Port Arthur, Texas
June 21, 1966

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