from author and historian Jim Ignasher
Stratford, Connecticut – November 29, 1970
On November 29, 1970, a 39-year-old man from Trumbull, Connecticut, perished when his home-built airplane crashed and sank in the Housatonic River in Stratford. The man had built the aircraft himself, and this was only his second flight with it.
Source:
The Bridgeport Post, “Search Continues For Trumbull Pilot, Homemade Plane Dove Into River”, November 30, 1970. (Article submitted by Eric Wiberg, author and historian.)
Stratford, Connecticut – March 15, 1943
F4U Corsair
US Navy Photo
On March 15, 1943, Chance-Vought civilian test pilot Boone T. Guyton, was piloting an F4U-1 Corsair, (Bu. No. 02157), over the Stratford area. The aircraft had been brought to Chance-Vought and converted to a XF4U-3, with experimental equipment added. Mr. Guyton was testing the performance of the aircraft when the engine suddenly failed forcing him to make an emergency landing at Bridgeport Airport, (Today known as Sikorsky Memorial Airport.) Upon landing the aircraft struck a cement retaining wall. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair, and the pilot was seriously injured.
Investigation determined that one of the rods in the engine had seized causing the engine failure.
Guyton survived an earlier crash landing in Norwich, Connecticut, on July 11, 1940. Click here for more information.
Boone Guyton, (1913 – 1996), was a well known test pilot and navy veteran. He wrote a book of his experiences called “Whistling Death: The Test Pilot’s Story Of The F4U Corsair, published in 1991 and 1997.
Source:
U.S. Navy accident report #43-6245, dated March 15, 1943
Stratford, Connecticut – November 29, 1975
There is little information about this accident. On November 29, 1975, a single-engine airplane with a 55-year-old father and his 22-year-old son aboard, went down in the water just a few yards off the shore of Long Beach in Stratford. The cause was not stated. Both escaped with minor injuries.
Source:
Boston Herald – American (Advertiser), Photo and caption. November 30, 1975
Stratford, Connecticut – January 10, 1975
Updated July 30, 2018
At 12:30 p.m. on January 10, 1975, a twin-engine Piper Apache airplane took off from Meriden-Wallingford Airport bound for Farmingdale, Long Island, N.Y. Shortly before 12:53 p.m., the engine developed mechanical difficulty while passing over Stratford. Witnesses later told reporters that they heard the engine skipping before the airplane went into a nosedive and crashed and exploded. The aircraft went down on Cutspring Road, a residential area in the northern part of Stratford, but no homes were damaged. The 54-year-old pilot from Long Island was the only person aboard, and was killed instantly.
Sources:
New York Times, “L.I. Businessman is Killed In Connecticut Plane Crash”, January 11, 1975.
Hartford Courant, “Man Dies In Plane Crash”, January 11, 1975, with photo of accident scene. Page 9.
Providence Journal Bulletin, “Conn. Plane Crash Kills Pilot”, January 11, 1975, page 2
Stratford, Connecticut – February 15, 1942
P-39 Aircobra – U.S. Air Force Photo
At 10:45 a.m., on February 15, 1942, 2nd Lt. Harry L. Mathews, 24, took off from Bridgeport Municipal Airport in a Bell P-39C, (Ser. No. 40-2972), for an aerobatic training flight over the area. After circling the field once he called for landing instructions and was given instructions to land on the east-west runway from the east. After completing another half-circle of the airport the plane fell about one-and-a-half miles from the airport coming down in an area known as Lordship marshes, in the Lordship Village section of Stratford.
The first to arrive at the crash site were members of the Lordship Volunteer Fire Department, who raced from their fire station about a quarter of a mile away. There they found Lt. Mathews had been killed in the crash.
A woman who witnessed the crash from her home at 491 Washington Parkway, Lordship, told reporters that the plane’s engine was sputtering, and as it was in a left turn about 100 feet above the ground it suddenly fell to the marsh landing on its left wing and nose. There was no fire afterward.
The accident was blamed on mechanical failure with the aircraft’s engine.
Lt. Mathews, of Gates, North Carolina, was survived by his wife, Mary, whom he had married only two months earlier on December 18, 1941. Prior to entering the Air Corps in April of 1941, he graduated Wake Forest College, and had been a school teacher. He received his basic flight training at Randolph Field, Texas, and graduated from Pursuit Training School at Victoria, Texas, December 12, 1941. At the time of his death he was assigned to the 61st Pursuit Squadron.
Sources:
U.S. Army Air Corps Technical Report Of Aircraft Accident #42-2-15-2
Unknown Newspaper, “Flier Killed In Stratford”, unknown date.
Stratford, Connecticut – March 26, 1942
P-39 Aircobra – U.S. Air Force Photo
Shortly before 10:30 a.m. on the morning of March 26, 1942, 2nd Lt. Edward G. Armstrong was flying a P-39 single-seat fighter aircraft (Ser. No. 40-36) on a training flight over the Stratford, Connecticut, area in which he was going through aerobatic maneuvers with the aircraft. According to witnesses, the aircraft’s engine suddenly quit while at 500 feet, and the plane went into a spin from which it did not recover. It crashed in St. Michael’s Cemetery, only a few feet from Bruce Brook, which boarders one side of the cemetery. There was no fire, but the plane was demolished, and Lt. Armstrong was killed instantly.
The cemetery is located at 2205 Stratford Ave., in Stratford. It is surrounded by a densely populated area, and it’s possible that Lt. Armstrong remained with his aircraft to avoid having it crash into nearby homes.
Lt. Armstrong was assigned to the 61st Pursuit Squadron in Bridgeport, Ct. He received his pilots rating December 12, 1941.
According to a newspaper article in the Bridgeport Herald, Lt. Armstrong was the second fatality in his squadron since it came to the Bridgeport area. On February 15, 1942, Lieutenant Harry L. Mathews, 24, of North Carolina, was killed when his P-39C (40-2972,) crashed near the Bridgeport Municipal Airport while on a training flight. For more information, see the page about Lt. Mathews on this website – New England Aviation History
Sources:
U.S. Army Air Corps Technical Report Of Aircraft Accident #42-3-26-7
Bridgeport Herald, “Plane Crash In Stratford Kills Second Army Flyer”, March 26, 1942
Stratford, Connecticut – July 23, 1933
James A. Mollison and his wife Amy Johnson were two famous aviators, each in their own right. In July of 1933 they decided to fly their private aircraft, Seafarer, (British registration G-ACCV) across the Atlantic Ocean from Pendine Sands, Wales, to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York. After flying 3, 190 miles in 39 hours, they found themselves over Bridgeport Airport in Stratford, Connecticut. (Today the airport is known as Sikorsky Memorial Airport.)
By this time fatigue had set in for both flyers, and the aircraft was also dangerously low on fuel, so landing at the airport seemed their only option as it was clear they’d never make it to Brooklyn. The Seafarer made several aborted landing attempts before flying out over the marshlands where the Housatonic River empties into Long Island Sound. It was there the plane made a crash landing in the weeds and flipped over in the muck. Fortunately both husband and wife weren’t seriously injured, and only required a brief hospital stay.
The Seafarer was custom built by de Havilland for the couple.
Videos of this aircraft and the crash site can be found on Youtube.
Source:
New York Times, “Mollisons Crash At Bridgeport: Both Are Injured, Plane Wrecked; Had Flown From Wales in 39 Hours”, July 24, 1933, pg. 1
Stratford, Connecticut – July 11, 1910
Lordship Park
On July 2, 1910, it was reported in The Bridgeport Evening Farmer that Stanley Y. Beach, editor of The Scientific American, was planning a flight that afternoon in his new Bleriot monoplane at Lordship Park, in Stratford.
The article stated in part, “Mr. Beach is the first aeronaut to hit upon the gyroscope as a means of insuring stability in flying machines, but has not yet succeeded in putting his ideas to a practical test. He has made many attempts at flight, and each one appears to bring him nearer to his goal. The occasion of his last attempt, he arose a few feet from the ground and actually flew for a short distance, but not long enough to put his machine through a real trial.”
The article also stated that “Mr. Beach’s ultimate project is a flight across Long Island Sound.”
At about 2:00 p.m. on the afternoon of July 10,1910, Mr. Beach was back at Lordship Park with his Bleriot monoplane preparing for another flight. Beach had directed his airplane towards a fifty-foot cliff overlooking Long Island Sound at the edge of the park. After a mechanic started the engine, Beach sped towards the cliff, but when he tried to take off the plane didn’t respond to the controls, and Beach suddenly realized he was in trouble. Just as he reached the cliff’s edge Beach bailed out and tumbled to the ground. The aircraft continued over the edge and crashed on some rocks below. Beach was relatively unhurt, but the aircraft suffered considerable damage.
The accident did not deter Beach from aviation.
Sources:
The Bridgeport Evening Farmer, “With New Aeroplane Beach Plans Flight From Lordship Park”, July 2, 1910, Page 3.
The Bridgeport Evening farmer, “Stanley Beach Plunges From Flying Machine As It Dashes Over Cliff At Lordship Park”, July 11, 1910, Page 2.
New York Tribune, “Beach Monoplane Falls”, July 12, 1910, Page 3.
Sikorsky Memorial Airport – April 27, 1994
Town of Stratford, Connecticut
On the evening of April 27, 1994, a chartered passenger plane with nine people aboard left Atlantic City, New Jersey, bound for Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford, Connecticut. (The aircraft was a twin-engine Navajo Chieftan.)
Shortly before 11:00 p.m. as the plane neared Stratford, it encountered heavy fog conditions with only 100 feet visibility. The control tower at the airport had closed at 10:30 p.m., and was unmanned as the plane approached, leaving the pilot to attempt the landing unaided.
Due to the age of the aircraft, it did not contain a “black box” or other data recording devices, so it’s unclear if the pilot attempted to abort the landing while over the runway, or simply overshot it due to poor visibility. What is known is that the aircraft crashed into an eight-foot metal barrier placed on an embankment at the end of the runway, and exploded. Some of the debris went over the embankment and landed on Main Street which was just beyond the barrier.
Seven of the nine people aboard were killed in the crash, but two survivors were taken to Bridgeport Hospital in critical condition with severe burns. One of them died hours later.
Their names were not immediately released.
Sources:
New York Times, “Seven Killed In Fiery Crash Of Airplane”, April 28, 1994
New York Times, “Cause Is Sought In fatal Crash Of Airplane On Casino Trip”, April 29, 1994
New York Times, “Flawed Airport Design Is Called Cause Of 8 Deaths In Crash”, December 14, 1994
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