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BANGOR – Fifty years ago on May 11, Earl Pardy, 73, of Winterport was a 23-year-old second lieutenant piloting an F-94 jet coming in for a landing at Dow Air Force Base.
“The engine quit,” Pardy said succinctly. He and 2nd Lt. Floyd Lovejoy Jr. of Burnham, also 23 at the time and along on the flight as an observer, crashed into a wooded area about a half-mile east of the Odlin Road.
The two, members of the 132nd Fighter-Interceptor Squad of the 101st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, Air National Guard, were finishing up a nighttime training flight.
The two men walked away from the crash, though not exactly unscathed. Each suffered a back injury, Pardy said.
The Bangor Daily News reported the crash in its May 12, 1955 edition:
The plane, the reporter wrote, was approaching Dow three-quarters of a mile to the south preparatory to landing. It cut a wide, 100-foot long swath through the trees, and the wings were ripped off before the aircraft came to rest just above a small stream on the property of Barbara Simpson. The nose of the plane split in two.
Rescue crews and firefighting equipment from Dow headed by Chief Warrant Officer Valton Allen reached the scene of the crash a few minutes after the plane went down at 9:15 p.m.
Flames from the plane rose in a high column just after the crash.
Col. Philip E. Tukey, commanding officer of the 101st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, said that one of the plane’s seats, found 70 feet away from the cockpit, was blown from the craft by an explosion that followed the crash.
The demolished plane burned for hours.
Pardy and Lovejoy were taken to the base hospital.
The cause of the engine failure was never determined, Pardy said. “We burned all the evidence,” he said, laughing.
Lovejoy received a Soldier’s Medal for getting Pardy clear of the wreckage to safety.
To mark the 50th anniversary of their ill-fated flight, Pardy and Lovejoy, who now lives in Augusta, will meet for lunch to remember their narrow escape that night when Lady Luck was on their side.
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