This aircraft was fresh from the factory with less than 165 total hours on the airframe and engines.  Yet this brand-new war ready B-24J, with an Instructor Pilot onboard, disintegrated in mid air killing all those onboard.  The nine crewmembers that day were just practicing some very routine aerial tasks.  The weather was clear.  It was a  perfect flying day! The Flight Engineer was to practice the emergency procedures for lowering the nose gear.  The Bombardier was practicing dropping bombs on the bombing range.  The pilot was practicing formation flying with two other B-24s.  And finally, the gunners were to practice field stripping their weapons.  There should not have been any trouble with this aircraft that day.  But at 3:28 p.m. on the afternoon of July 2, 1944, over the Mojave Desert of Southern California, this aircraft and crew joined the rapidly growing list of wartime training casualties.

    The accident occurred about twenty miles northeast of their base at the Muroc Army Airfield (now Edwards AFB). They were part of a three ship training flight that was to remain in the local area for the first part of their mission.  As a group they were to practice formation flying, and formation bombing.  Then separately they were to have each crewmember practice assigned tasks. The crewmember were:
  
    Lt. George Klotz……………………B-24J Instructor Pilot
    Lt. Mitchell R.Bogumirski……….….1^st pilot
    Lt. Raymond C. Pfeifer…………..…Co-pilot
    Lt. Robert P. Bishop………….…….Bombardier
    Cpl. Ralph A. Nester……………….Flight Engineer
    Cpl. Elton F. Hensel………………..Radio Operator
    Cpl. Alvin J. Geswein………….…   Asst. Radio Operator
    Cpl. Richard A. Ahlmann …….……Gunner
    Cpl. Ernest B. Beaty…………….....Gunner

    Two older B-24s, ship 158 and ship 774, followed ship 780 down the hot sun baked runway at Muroc in a three-ship formation at about 11:45 hrs. (11:45 a.m.) to begin the training session that day.  It was a hot, but cloudless July afternoon.  The temperature on the ground was probably in the 100-degree range.  As the three aircraft climbed for altitude, the crew surely felt some relief from the cooler air above.

    Ship 780 piloted by Lt. Bogumirski was the lead aircraft.   Ships 774 piloted by Lt. Thomas O. DuPree, and ship 158 piloted by Lt. Joseph C. Clayton at the controls were following in close trail.  Their assigned altitude was 20,000 feet.  But as the aircraft began to climb Clayton in 158 was unable to maintain his position in the group.  His ship, for unrecorded reasons, just could not keep up with the other two.  He notified 780 that he would not be joining them and then requested to fly his mission at 16,000 feet.  The request was granted, and he proceeded on alone.

    The mission, with the remaining two aircraft proceeded normally.  Once at altitude Lt. Klotz requested permission from Range Control to begin bombing.  Permission was granted, and for the next couple of hours the aircraft made seven passes over the range together.  In a statement to the Investigation Board, Lt. DuPree gave his opinion on the condition of 780 as follows:


    He further stated: “I am convinced that ship 780 flew the mission on C-1 Auto Pilot.  During our formation flying my co-pilot and I commented on this fact from the way 780 reacted somewhat jerkily when making a turn.  780 had a tendency to turn too sharply, then correct and turn again.”

    It was at this point that Dupree’s ship began to experience some minor electrical problems.  He had departed Muroc with only two of the four generators working properly.   At 2:45 p.m. he lost the third one, and the fourth became too weak to continue the flight.  He advised 780 of his problem and requested permission to return to Muroc and land.  Permission was granted, and at 15:00 hrs (3:00 p.m.) he left the formation and took up a course directly back to the airfield.

    On the way back to Muroc the weak fourth generator failed completely.  The onboard Auxiliary Power Unit (Putt-Putt) was engaged to supply electrical power for landing.  As Dupree entered the traffic pattern over Muroc at 5,000 feet he and his co-pilot noticed a large column of black  smoke rising up from the desert floor about twenty miles to the north.  His statement continued:

        “I did not think it advisable to proceed to the smoke to investigate, since I did not have sufficient power to transmit on the           radio.  I landed at 15:45 hrs (3:45 p.m.), and later learned the smoke had been the crash of ship 780.”

    Approaching the bombing range from the northeast, Lt. Clayton in 158 also noticed the fire far below.  His statement reads in part:

        “We were flying an inbound heading of about 210 degrees when the co-pilot noticed the fire.  As soon as we saw it we     went to the crash, and we notified the tower.  The time was approximately 15:20 hrs. (3:20 p.m.)"

    The only actual witnesses to the crash itself were non-flying personnel on the ground, and it was felt that their testimony was valueless to the investigation.  However, their collective statements seemed to indicate that the aircraft was descending rapidly in a spin from about 8,000 feet up, and was possibly emitting smoke.  The ship was seen to disintegrate in the air and fall to earth in many large and small pieces along a two miles stretch of desert north of Boron, California.  The two outboard engines separated from the mainframe several thousand feet above the desert floor, and were found approximated four hundred yards away from the main point of impact.   The two inboard engines, the cockpit section, and the main wing center section all came down together.  The intense gasoline fed fire consumed most of the wreckage before fire and rescue crews could arrive to extinguish it.  Any hope of finding a clue to the cause of this accident went up in smoke.

    Investigators searched a wide swath of desert looking for miscellaneous pieces in the hopes of finding something that would help in the investigation.  But nothing useful was found.  The propellers on the four engines were determined to be in cruising pitch, and all four engines were developing power when the impact occurred.  None of the pieces found that fell off in the air exhibited any burn marks, which tended to rule out an in-flight fire.

    When the Investigation Board was ready to write their report, they could not list a cause, and therefore could not make any recommendations to help prevent future accidents.  They simply stated, “The airplane disintegrated in the air from unknown reasons.”

    Today what is left of the wreckage from 42-50780 is still scattered around the main point of impact.  Salvage crew, or metal scavengers long ago removed most of the aluminum and larger steel pieces.  But there is still a considerable amount of burned and rusted pieces of the B-24 lying around the area.  The once molten ingots of aluminum scattered about are a testament to the intensity of fire following impact.  The surrounding desert has also long ago returned to its natural state.  New foliage is growing among remnants of radio tubes, engine parts, and cockpit instruments. Animal trails now crisscross the entire area.  It’s a serene and peaceful site now.  There’s little to indicate that this was the very spot were nine young men died all those many years ago

    Many decades later the son of Cpl. Ralph A. Nester, the Flight Engineer on 780, placed an eternal memorial stone on the site to honor the memory his father and the other eight men who died there.

Figure 3.  Unidentified tubing, possibly from the engine nacelle area.
(Photo Copyright Don R. Jordan)

Figure 4. Propeller hub cover, with debris from the melted engine in the background.
(Photo Copyright Don R. Jordan)

Figure 5.  The Memorial Stone placed by Dick Nester, the son of Ralph Nester.
(Photo Copyright Don R. Jordan)

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