Historic airplane with Hampden link crashes

PORTLAND – A British pilot who had a historic World War II airplane rebuilt in Maine last year has crashed the aircraft in the Caribbean Sea.

Maurice Kirk, a 62-year-old retired veterinarian, was in Hampden last spring to have work done on Liberty Girl, a airplane he said Gen. George Patton flew over France to survey battlefields below.

According to the Coast Guard, Kirk was flying solo when he issued a distress call Saturday before crashing about 75 miles north of the Dominican Republic. A Coast Guard helicopter found Kirk in the water by tracking an emergency radio beacon he had. Kirk, who injured his neck and head in the crash, was treated at a hospital and released on the island of the Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

As of Tuesday evening, the Liberty Girl was “basically lost at sea,” said Jeff Russell of Hampden whose company, Center for Classic Aircraft Skills, helped restore the wings of the aircraft. Russell said that the airplane had a lot of flotation equipment onboard and Kirk hopes to recover the aircraft before it is forever swept away by the sea.

“The spirit of the Liberty Girl will continue to exist,” said Russell. “Many of the pieces that came off the Liberty Girl are actually here in Hampden.”

Kirk previously crashed the small airplane – it’s only 22 feet long – on a city street in Japan in 2005 before bringing it to Maine for repairs. After restoring the airplane in merely five months, Kirk had the Liberty Girl in the air again on Jan. 22, according to Russell.

Russell said his and Kirk’s goal was to educate and inspire people, since many said the Liberty Girl would never fly again. Despite what appears to be a tragic ending, both Russell and Kirk hope Saturday’s flight was not the last for historic airplane. If it is, then at least some of the original pieces from the Liberty Girl are in Hampden, Russell said.

Russell was supposed to take his turn piloting the Liberty Girl once Kirk returned to the U.S. “I’m saddened that there has been a delay in that, and the possibility that it will never happen,” he said.

BDN writer Toni-Lynn Robbins contributed to this report.