1950 — July 13, USAF B-50 plunges to earth, unknown cause, ~Mason & Lebanon, OH–all 16

–16 AP. “16 Perish In Lebanon Crash.” Hamilton Daily News Journal, OH. 7-14-1950, p. 1.
–16 Center for Defense Information. “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents: Dangers in Our Midst.”
–16 Flight International. “US Accidents,” July 4, 1981.
–16 Gibson. Nuclear Weapons of the United States. 1996, pp. 42-43.
–16 NFPA. “Fires Causing Large Loss of Life.” Handbook of Fire Protection. 1954, p. 36.
–16 Rowe and Hoffmann. “B-50D Carrying a Nuclear Bomb Crashes in Warren County.” 8-16-2019.

Narrative Information

Baugher: “Boeing B-50D-110-BO Superfortress….267 (97th BG) crashed Jul 13, 1950 in rural Ohio. All aboard killed. Witnesses saw the plane spinning out of the base of a storm system, engines screaming, breaking up and boring into the ground.” (Baugher. 1949 USAF Serial Numbers. 8-17-2011 revision.)

Center for Defense Information. “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents: Dangers in Our Midst.”
“[Event] No. 3, July 13, 1950/B-50/Lebanon, Ohio.

“The B-50 was on a training mission from Biggs Air Force Base, {El Paso,} Texas. The aircraft was flying 7,000 feet on a clear day. Aircraft nosed down and flew into the ground killing four officers and twelve airmen. The high explosive portion of the weapon aboard detonated on impact. There was no nuclear capsule aboard the aircraft.

“CDI: The explosion was hear over a radius of 25 miles and made a crater 25 feet deep and 200 feet square. The B-50 was an improved derivative of the B-29 with the same general appearance. It was operational from 1948-1953 and 370 were built.”

Flight International: “July 13, 1950 A Boeing B-50 [49-267] on a training flight from Biggs AFB, Texas, was flying at 7,000 ft on a clear day near Lebanon, Ohio. The aircraft nosed over suddenly and flew into the ground, killing the 16-man crew. The weapon’s HE detonated but no nuclear capsule was aboard.” (Flight International. “US Accidents,” July 4, 1981.)

National Fire Protection Association: “July 13, Mason, Ohio, U.S. Air Force, B-50. $850,000, 16 killed. Possibly engine fire in flight followed by crash and fire. Fatal to all aboard.” (National Fire Protection Association. “Large Loss Fires of 1959.” The Quarterly, 44/3, Jan, 1951.)

Rowe and Hoffmann: “On the morning of July 13, 1950, a B-50D Superfortress bomber, tail number 49-0267, from the US Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC), 97th Bomb Group, took off from Biggs Air Force Base in El Paso, Texas and began its long journey in-route to England with a planned stopover at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio: the aircraft was heavily loaded. It was flying over Warren County, Ohio at around 2:54 in the afternoon when the bomber suddenly fell from the sky and crashed approximately 4 ½ miles north east of Mason Ohio. The crash occurred west of State Route 741 and north of Hamilton Road and was being flown by Captain John Adams Jr who, at the time, had 1020 hours flight time. All sixteen crewmembers on board the aircraft were instantly killed in the crash.

“ Clyde Shutts of Lebanon provided eyewitness testimony to the crash and said he was in his barnyard when he heard a racing engine. He said when he looked up, he saw the plane spiraling, nose down, toward the ground, and it appeared that the plane tried to pull up but then he lost sight of it as it went behind the trees. Mr. Shutts said he then heard a loud explosion.

“Additional eyewitness said the plane was flying at approximately 7000 feet when it began a fast decent followed by a stall at approximately 4000 feet where it began a spiral and nosedive and hit the ground. The Air Force Crash Report stated the B-50D created a crater in the ground that was approximately 125 feet in diameter and 20 feet deep. Upon impact, the explosion it created was deafening. Jerry Hoffmann of Clearcreek Township, Warren County, Ohio was 12 years old at the time of the crash and remembers hearing the explosion almost 11 miles away in Ridgeville. The loud explosion was caused by the fuel the plane carried for its 4 Pratt & Whitney R-4360 prop-driven engines and the deadly cargo it carried in its bomb bay: a Mark-4 nuclear bomb.

“The Mark-4 nuclear bomb, in use from 1949-1953, was based on the earlier Mark-3 Fat Man bomb design that was used on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. Luckily for Warren County on that overcast and drizzly day, the bomb did not have its physics-package installed at the time of the crash. The physics-package is the part of a nuclear bomb that carries the fissile material which is imploded or exploded (depending on nuclear bomb design) to cause the nuclear reaction. The Mark-4 weapon on the B-50D that crashed in Warren County did have its high explosives installed though causing the exceptionally loud explosion. The high explosives are used to detonate the physics-package of the atomic bomb.

“Almost immediately after the crash, spectators began to arrive at the crash scene, and it was a gruesome sight as there were body parts hanging from the trees and on the ground. The local fire department arrived to extinguish the fire, and began putting up barricades to control the spectators. All highways leading to the crash site were jammed due to spectators trying to get a peek and figure out what was going on. It was estimated that 5000 people came to view the crash site that day. United States Air Force officers from Wright Patterson Air Force Base began arriving shortly afterwards. They took charge of the crash site and brought in bulldozers and clamshell diggers. They were searching for the nuclear bomb but did not tell anyone what they were looking for.

“Today, after almost 68 years and the loss of 16 lives on that fateful day in Warren County, there are no visible signs to remind us of that horrendous crash and the nuclear bomb that exploded in Warren County. Representatives of the Auto Pilot Branch, Aircraft Laboratory, HQ AMC were at the scene also to aid in the finding of parts of the auto pilot equipment and conduct further investigation into the possibility that the auto pilot may have caused the accident; the only identifiable part of the auto pilot found was an aileron servo motor.

“After a lengthy investigation by the US Air Force, Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, and Pratt & Whitney, the engine manufacturer, the cause of the crash could not be determined because, as the crash report states: ‘Due to the lack of information regarding the flight during which the accident occurred, and the almost complete disintegration of the airplane upon impact, it has been impossible to determine what part, or parts, of the airplane failed or malfunctioned, or any other cause factors to which the accident can be attributed.’” (Rowe and Hoffmann. “B-50D Carrying a Nuclear Bomb Crashes in Warren County.” Warren County Historical Society, 8-16-2019.)

Newspaper

July 14, AP: “(Associated Press) Dayton, O., July 14. Death toll in an air force B-50 bomber crash near Lebanon, O., yesterday has been raised to 16, Wright-Patterson air force base officials reported today….The public information office at the field said it had been authorized by officers of the Eighth Air Force, Biggs Field, El Paso, Tex., to announce the new death toll….

“Only a gaping hole in a field and shattered pieces of metal today showed where the big bomber crashed.

“At El Paso, Tex., Biffs field officers today announced the names of six of those killed in the crash. They said the names of the others would not be announced until later in the day. The dead:

Capt. Paul E. Anderson, Jr., age 29, El Paso;
S/Sgt. Ellis E. Smith, age 40, El Paso;
S/Sgt. James A. Travis, age 29, Bertram, Tex.;
S/Sgt. Russell E. Moore, age 22, Salem, W.Va.’
Sgt. Alcide Danos, age 22, Daytown [Baytown?] Tex.;
Pfc. George L. Martin, about 21, Danberry, Neb.

“Biggs officials said the plane was on a routine practice mission and was carrying practice bombs.

“The plane plunged into the ground on a farm near Lebanon and exploded. The impact and the blast tore a hole in the ground that was about 18 feet deep and at least 75 feet wide. The big plane was blown to pieces. There was little left that couldn’t have been carried away by an average-sized man. Bodies and parts of bodies of the victims were scattered over a wide area. The explosion was heard in this Warren county seat, four miles away. Windows were blown out of a farm house one mile away.

“Reports from witnesses as to just what happened varied. Two farmers living near the scene – Alex Fields and George Shumaker – said they remarked that the plane appeared to be in trouble only a minute or two before the crash. ‘There was no fire until the explosion,’ Fields said. Anthony Van Holle, another farmer witness, said he thought he saw fire coming from the plane just before it disappeared behind trees and crashed in the field.” (Associated Press. “16 Perish In Lebanon Crash. Ship Plunges, Explodes on Farm.” Hamilton Daily News Journal, OH. 7-14-1950, p. 1.)

Sources

Associated Press. “16 Perish In Lebanon Crash. Ship Plunges, Explodes on Farm.” Hamilton Daily News Journal, OH. 7-14-1950, p. 1. Accessed 8-25-2023 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/hamilton-daily-news-journal-jul-14-1950-p-25/

Baugher, Joseph F. 1949 USAF Serial Numbers. Aug 17 2011 revision. Accessed at: http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1949.html

Center for Defense Information. “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accidents: Dangers in Our Midst.” (MILNET Mirror Document). Washington, DC: CDI, 1981.

Flight International. “US Accidents,” July 4, 1981, page 42. Accessed at: http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1981/1981%20-%202194.html

Gibson, James N. Nuclear Weapons of the United States – An Illustrated History. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 1996.

National Fire Protection Association. “Large Loss Fires of 1959.” The Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 3, January, 1951, p. 250.

Rowe, Dwight and Ron Hoffmann. “B-50D Carrying a Nuclear Bomb Crashes in Warren County.” Warren County Historical Society, 8-16-2019. First published in the HistoricaLog for Summer/Fall 2018 as “B-50D Plane Crashes with Nuclear Bomb Onboard in Warren County, Ohio” Accessed 8-25-2023 at:
https://www.wchsmuseum.org/blog/air-force-b-50d-crashes-with-nuclear-bomb-onboard-in-warren-county-ohio