Life Magazine May 21, 1951 "Camera Records Big B-36 Crash"

Life Magazine May 21, 1951 "Camera Records Big B-36 Crash" Cover

Life Magazine ran a piece with still shots of the B-36 that Hazard shot on his home movie camera. It was somewhat controversial as the camera was initially seized by the Feds but presumably released later.

Life Magazine May 21, 1951 "Camera Records Big B-36 Crash" Pages 40-41

Transcript:

Camera Records Big B-36 Crash

High, gusty winds swirled the dry earth into a stinging dust storm at Albuquerque, NM. on Sunday last week as one of the world's biggest Bombers roared low over the city and lumbered into its final approach for a landing at Kirtland Air Force Base. It was a B-36D, three hours out of Fort Worth with 25 aboard, Wheels down, it settled gently toward the ground. Suddenly the right wing dipped, and the right outboard propeller and jet engines near the wing tip struck the ground with a screeching crash, At full throttle the 10-engined plane bounced into the air, made a clumsy climbing turn to the right, fell off on one wing and smashed into the ground in a blast of orange flame and thick black smoke. In this wreckage 23 airmen lost their lives.

This whole quick tragedy, as it happened, was recorded step by step on film. Near the field lived Allyn Hazard (right), who had recently bought a movie camera. Hearing the roar of the big plane, he called a friend, jumped into a car and made the pictures shown above while the friend drove toward the field. He was winding his camera when the plane first struck and missed the first step of the accident. But his film will help the Air Force find the cause of the crash.

In five years of flying its huge and complicated long-distance giants, the Air Force has lost four other B-36, one only a few weeks ago when it was rammed by a fighter plane. The first three were lost from engine failure, pilot error on take-off and ice in a heavy storm. The probable reason for this one: the pilot misjudged his approach in the gusty wind, tried to pull up and go around again, was too late.

"HAP HAZARD, who shot the crash, is an engineer, inventor and a dianetics auditor.

Images sent to me by a retired researcher in Santa Fe working on a space archeology project back in 2019, Ross Deforest Sackett. My heartfelt "Thank you!" goes out to him for this and other contributions.

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