On Feb. 5, 2018 the Ellsworth American Newspaper ran a piece on the anniversary of the plane crash at Kebo Golf Course. The crash took place just weeks before the United States entered World War 2. It was a stormy night when the plane went down and at least one person thought we might be under attack by the Nazis as phone calls began to flood in to the Bar Harbor Police Station. Besides the sounds of the large aircraft circling low over the town, the glow of flares dropped by the plane lended an errie feel to the scene unfolding that night. Some of the flares drifted on toward the Shore Path and the waters of Frenchman's bay.
Earlier in the day the aircraft departed its base at Pennfield Ridge in New Brunswick as it set off on a rountine training mission. By late that evening the plane had found itself in bad weather, lost in fog and ice forming on its wings. The use of flares was the only way the crew could desperately search out a safe place to put the plane down. Out of gas and time, the plane banked hard and crash landed at the 535-yard, par 5, 14th hole at Kebo Valley Golf Club just west of town. The belly landing left the plane intact with bend propeller blades as the plane skidded some 600 feet before coming to rest in a sand trap.
This crash could of been a lot worse had the plane broken up or caught fire.
I can't recall exactly how many men made up the crew but I believe another piece I read on this stated their was either a five or seven man crew on the aircraft that day, and not one of them was injured.
THE ELLSWORTH AMERICAN ARTICLE
