Suplus aircraft dumped down mineshafts?

[FLYBOYJ]

The fire footage was the USS Forrestal, a carrier sent to Viet Nam at the beginning of the conflict. Right before an airstrike a zuni missle went off and blew up a fully loaded aircraft. After that all hell broke loose. Many men died on the Forrestal because the damage control crew was wiped out and no one else had any real damage control or fire fighting training.

 

[evangilder]

I have a cousin that was on the Forrestal when it happened. To this day, he still won't talk about it.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I have a cousin that was on the Forrestal when it happened. To this day, he still won't talk about it.

I can't blame him - before the Forrestal was decommissioned its nickname was the "Forest fire."

 

[evangilder]

Yep. Usually when asked about his Navy service he only talks about being on the Ranger.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Wow- that's interesting!

I read once that people say the Forrestal was cursed because the guy they named it after committed suicide.

 

[evangilder]

Who knows. There are some funny superstitions about stuff like that. We had a "cursed" hangar at Lakenheath. Back when they had F-4s there, some crew chief decided to end it all. He pulled the ejection seat handles while inside the hangar (it was a TAB-V hardened aircraft shelter). It splattered him all over the ceiling of the thing. No one wanted to work in that hangar even 10 years later.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Yep - heard that one,

The prison up in Lancaster (my old home town) used to be an airfield (you may know that). it was known as Polaris Flight Academy, Inc. and Mira Loma Flight Academy and was used for RAF and USAAF flight training, some of the original buildings are still there. There are stories of ghosts, two guys in brown USAAF uniforms, and another guy in a green flight suit walking around in the buildings and on the grounds. The guy in the flight suit is supposed to be a Polish national who was being trained by the RAF. Legend has it we walked into a propeller.

 

[evangilder]

Ouch! That'll hurt. I heard stories of the "phantom airman" at Lakenheath as well. I think every airfield has it's legendary phantoms. It's amazing the airfields that have disappeared in Southern California. There was one in Thousand Oaks and one in Newbury Park, years ago. The 101 Freeway at Moorpark drive is right on what used to be the runway for the airport in TO!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Yep, I heard that. You also got Simi Valley airport and San Fernando which are now gone. Up in the AV there all over the place, you could see the remants from the air.

 

[evangilder]

There is a cool web-page that has all the old fields up there at:

http://www.airfields-freeman.com/CA/Airfields_CA_PalmdaleS.htm

I think the one you mentioned before was War Eagle Field.

 

[Messy1]

We have a John Deere plant here in my hometown of Ankeny, Iowa. During WW2, it was used to make ordnance. Rumor has it there is tons of leftover ordnance buried underground on the property. The factory has been expanded many times since the war, had much of it's land used as a test bed for farming, and recently a lrage junk was sold to a large development company for a new housing project. According to a local paper, when the land was sold to the development company, haz mat teams surveyed the land for months, I would guess to locate any lost stores.