Another Flight 11 family - Miller

Mr Duane Crawford received some very welcome visitors on Monday morning with the arrival of the Brueseke family who have come to Unionville. Barry and Bonnie Brueseke are from San Diego, CA. Bonnie Brueseke (Miller) was only four years old when her Uncle PFC Robert L. Miller was killed in the Flight 11 tragedy.

Robert L. Miller was assigned a seat at the rear of the Boeing 707 as he had injured his leg.

Robert's mother, Ada Miller, had heard about the crash on the 10:30pm news that evening and it was his father that had the grim task of travelling to Unionville to identify Robert's body.

The Brueseke's make yet another addition to the growing list of families coming forward who remember the life-long impact Flight 11 has had on them since May 22, 1962.

A return to Unionville

I don't normally post a personal message on this blog regarding my own plans but I thought it prudent to mention that I do intend to re-visit Unionville in 2014 and see if any progress has been made with plans to build a plaque and plant a tree at the actual site.

I look forward to returning as I feel my involvement with Flight 11 will be ongoing and lifelong.

Another photo from Jon Sperry of the crash site of Flight 11.

I had previously told some people that I wouldn't upload this photo of the crash site of Flight 11 taken just after the crash (I'm guessing the day after or the second day after). At this point the main wreckage has been further crushed up to assist in the body recovery from the main cabin area. As there is nothing in this photo that people can't see publicly at the Putnam County museum I thought it okay to place it here for historical purposes at the very least.

As always though if any of the family members wish for this to be removed then contact me immediately @ dhcomet@gmail.com

Edward Sullivan, Co-pilot of Flight 11

The family of Edward Sullivan has contacted me and Duane via this blog and email communication re Flight 11. Mr Sullivan was the co-pilot of Flight 11 that fateful evening. He along with Capt. Gray and Second Officer Dean Allen fought to get the 707 under control minus its tail section and had prepared the aircraft for an emergency descent and landing prior to losing the tail section.

We had not heard from the Sullivan's before now to my knowledge.

The Sullivan's are more than welcome to get in touch with me at dhcomet@gmail.com

Alan S. Boyd, Chairman of Civil Aeronautics Board at time of Flight 11

Alan S. Boyd, the man who was chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board when Flight 11 went down has a long and distinguished career in aviation and transportation. He was born in 1922 and is still alive. His current whereabouts or contact details however are unknown.

He later went on to be the First United States Secretary of Transportation from 1967-1969 under Lyndon B. Johnson's term in office.

He also served in WWII.

It was President Dwight Eisenhower who appointed him to the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1959 and he remained there until 1966. He is one of the gentleman who is mentioned in the Flight 11 accident report as being Chairman of the Board.

He later went on to be President of the Illinois Central Railroad and then Amtrak before retiring in the early 1980s to Edmonds, Washington.

 

Whitney Gillilland, Civil Aeronautics Board Member, Flight 11

For those of you who have read the accident report of Flight 11 you may have noticed a Whitney Gillilland was one of the people who signed their name at the conclusion of the report. Whitney was a member of the Civil Aeronautics Board from 1959 to 1976. He died in 1993.

The reason I mention this is many of his papers he wrote about aviation were rather influential at the time and he served as chairman of the board of accident investigators from 1960 to 1961. I believe he was one of the chief investigators of Flight 11 and was also from Iowa. He donated many of his documents and papers from his time at the Civil Aeronautics Board to the University of Iowa Special Collections department.

I have a list of Whitney's papers kept on file in the special collections department. As I don't live in the USA though I can't get to these papers and they are not available online or in a scanned copy.

I mention all this in case anyone has a further interest to see what Mr Gillilland's papers contain as there may be further information about Flight 11 although as I say, I can't confirm what these papers contain exactly.

The link to them is as follows;

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsc350/MsC316/MsC316_gillilland.html

New Zealand Aviation News July 2012 Issue

The July 2012 issue of New Zealand Aviation News will feature my article detailing the 50th anniversary commemorations of Flight 11 in Unionville, Missouri.

The article also includes colour photographs.

Their website is: http://www.aviationnews.co.nz/

First fatal crash for Continental Airlines

I had it confirmed by Ralph Boester who I've been in contact with (he worked at Continental and was a check-in counter agent amongst many other things at Chicago the night of Flight 11) that the sabotage and crash of Flight 11 was Continental's first-ever fatal incident. Until then Continental hadn't lost a single soul due to a crash or otherwise.

Flight 11 once again has another "first" in terms of historical importance.

Jon Sperry

A gentleman by the name of Jon Sperry has contacted me and sent me some photos that his Uncle took of Flight 11 following the crash. His Uncle (who is unfortunately no longer with us) was a Kirksville, Missouri highway patrolman. It's not known when these photos were taken (see below post) but I thought it prudent to upload two of them that detail the telescoped forward section of the fuselage (around the point of the wings forward) and also detailing the crash site as seen from the track driving to it.

For the families of those who went to the crash site in May 2012 you will know what I'm talking about when you see the second photo below and the distinctive treeline that runs all the way down from where we stood to about just past where the nose section of the fuselage would have been. You can also detail the spot on the far left that includes a cluster of cars (where we all pulled up in our vehicles and former schoolbus) and to the mid-right of the treeline are lots of people standing around who would have come up from the other side of the track in the opposite direction from which we came. 

I decided to upload these two photos as I felt they did not depict anything that wasn't/couldn't be seen in the photos at the Appanoose Historical Museum or any of the recent media articles (Alan Zagier and Joanathan Bender articles) about the crash and memorial or indeed a basic Google search. 

I do not believe these photos will cause any offence but if they do to anyone please contact me immediately and I shall remove them.

I have taken the liberty of forwarding them onto Maribeth DeHaven at the Putnam County Historical Society for her records and for the records of the Historical Society so that they may be filed away for safekeeping to add to the Flight 11 collection there in Unionville.  

 

Photos from Jon Sperry

I have been trying to decide whether or not to upload a couple of photos sent to me by Mr Jon Sperry whose late Uncle was a highway patrolman based out of Kirksville, Missouri. His Uncle took the photos of the crash site of Flight 11 and Jon scanned them through to me a few days ago. They had been sitting in an attic on some old original slides.

I have now seen that other crash-site photos have emerged in the press with the Alan Zagier and Jonathan Bender articles so I think it prudent to place them up here as there is nothing here that can't be seen elsewhere. They are pretty "run of the mill" and what you can see elsewhere.  The photos detail the compacted nature of the forward fuselage around the wing-section (1) & secondly the fuselage in relation to the tree line at the crash site with rescue helicopter (painted bright orange and black) parked to the far right (2).

Many thanks to Jon Sperry for these precious and unique photos of N70775. We have no dates for these photos by the way and Jon's Uncle is no longer with us to confirm details.