Lakewood Once Site of Military Crash

Lakewood residents know that their biggest neighbor is a military base. Aircraft can be seen and heard during most hours of the day and night as Joint Base Lewis-McChord conducts missions that touch all areas of the world.

But there was one time when one of those aircraft came crashing down from the sky. It was an otherwise routine flight for the Douglas C-54 Skymaster when it approached McChord Field shortly after midnight on Nov. 28, 1952. But it would end with 37 dead.

The Skymaster was the backbone of aerial supply for the Air Force in those days. Used widely in World War II and the Korean War, it is best known for being the main aircraft used during the Berlin Airlift. It was also one of the first planes to carry a sitting president and use the callsign Air Force One. It was used by more than 30 countries and finally retired from military service in 1975.

But one of its planes would never see retirement.

An online article by Daryl C. McClary,“U.S. Air Force C-54G Skymaster crashes in Tacoma, killing 37 people, on November 28, 1952." Historylink.org details the crash.

A crew from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, was flying in from a flight from Fairbanks with 32 servicemen and their families as well as its standard crew of seven. Captain Albert J. Fenton was piloting the plane when he radioed the McChord control tower around midnight about conditions he would face on final approach.

The skies offered visibility of less than a mile. He was instructed to swoop left and prepare for a ground-controlled landing. But then the weather suddenly shifted. A thick fog instantly rose from the ground to about 300 feet and created a wall of zero-visibility wall as the plane flew near.

Fenton aborted the landing and radioed the tower that he was proceeding to Malmstrom instead. That was the last transmission.

The Skymaster crashed in what was then an open field around Wards Lake Park just a mile shy of the McChord runway. The plane had hit several treetops and narrowly missed the Edgewood Park apartments and a handful of homes just east of South Tacoma Way and 84th Street. All were occupied with mostly military families.

Witnesses later told investigators that they heard the plane hit the trees and catch fire before it crashed to the ground, breaking up into two major sections and tossing bodies and baggage into a debris field that spanned two football fields. Some witnesses heard screams from the plane as the wreckage burned. 

“Meanwhile, fire and rescue teams from McChord AFB, Lakewood, and Tacoma rushed to the crash site and extinguished the fires in the fuselage and scattered debris,” the article reported. “Using magnesium flares and flashlights, police and sheriff’s officers, firemen, and military personnel searched the smoldering, twisted wreckage, looking for victims. Of the 39 people aboard the C-54G, they found only three survivors: Airman Bobby R. Wilson, age 20, a member of the plane’s crew, Airman Curtis Redd, age 23, and Joseph M. Iacovitti, age 8, both passengers.”

Wilson later died after suffering massive burns and internal injuries.  Redd recovered from his extensive burns after lengthy treatments. Iacovitti had burns, broken legs and a fractured neck. He lived. But both parents, two brothers, and a sister died in the mishap. He was left an orphan. Three entire families onboard died.

The Air Force Board of Inquiry, commanded by Brigadier General Richard J. O’Keefe, concluded that Fenton had boosted power after aborting the landing but one of his engines failed. Visibility was too limited for him to see the 100-foot fir trees that the plane struck moments later.

The incident has largely been lost to local history since a more tragic crash occurred just three weeks later when a Douglas C-124A-DL Globemaster II crashed at Larson Air Force Base in Moses Lake. That crash claimed 87 of the 115 people on board.