Surviving a Horrific WWII Army Plane Crash and Making it All the Way to 2020
My grandfather was the coolest grandpa a kid could want.
I might not have been here. But my grandfather miraculously survived a U.S. Army Air Corps bomber crash during World War II, so this story can be written.
He never spoke about the details, but news reports say the accident happened the night of August 8, 1943 during a routine training flight. My grandfather’s aircraft plowed into the harsh desert 120 miles west of Salt Lake City, Utah. Crash-landing into what is now Interstate 80 then skidding off the road onto nearby Western Pacific railroad tracks. Minutes later the bomber was slammed by a freight train resulting in a 26-car pile-up and what the Associated Press called a “dizzy pyramid of destruction.”