Date:	Friday 5 May 1944
Time:	10:26
Type:	Douglas C-49H (DC-3)
Owner/operator:	United States Army Air Force - USAAF
Registration:	NC21788
MSN:	2187
Year of manufacture:	1940
Engine model:	Wright R-1820-97
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 4
Other fatalities:	4
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed, written off
Category:	Accident
Location:	10 km SE off Lake Worth, FL -   United States of America
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	Miami-36th Street Airport, FL (MIA/KMIA)
Destination airport:	Savannah International Airport, GA (SAV/KSAV)

Narrative:
A Consolidated B-24D (41-11889) departed Homestead AAF, FL on an instrument flight to West Palm Beach, FL. To simulate instrument conditions, the pilot was flying under the hood.
At 10:06 a Douglas C-49 took off from Miami, bound for Savannah and began to climb to its assigned cruising altitude of 3000 feet. At 10:20 the pilot of the B-24 radioed Morrison Field that the exercise was completed and that they were leaving the Morrison Radio Range. It proceeded to the south at an altitude of 1500 feet. At 10:26 both aircraft collided nearly head on. The B-24D's port wing separated near the no. 1 engine. The airplane rolled over to the left and crashed into the sea. The C-49 went into a steep spiral and impacted the sea about a mile off shore.
It is presumed that the pilot of the B-24 was still under the hood with both crew members of the C-49 preoccupied with their respective cockpit duties.
Official records list the C-49's serial as 39-2187. This seems improbable

Aviation Archaeological Investigation and Research (AAIR)
Fatal Army Air Forces Aviation Accidents in the United States, 1941-1945, Vol. 2: July 1943-July 1944 / Anthony J. Mireles

Other occurrences involving this aircraft

2 March 1942

NC21788

Pennsylvania-Central Airlines

0

Detroit City Airport, MI

sub

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