My C-47, a sad ending for a great aircraft.

A Sad ending for a Fine Aircraft

With the help of Mr. Henry M. Holden, Mr. Allen Cates, and Judy Porter, I have located and learned the fate of my old C-47, 43-15949. I was Crew Chief and flew her at Sheppard AFB in the Mid 60's. She crashed in early 1969 in Viet Nam. Mr. Cates forwarded me pictures of the crash with the tail number 949 clearly visable.
I wish to thank both gentlemen and Mrs Porter for their time and efforts.

Added November 6th, 1998. I got an E-mail this morning from the son of one of the crewmembers of 949's fateful flight nearly 31 years ago. He gave me the date of the incident as Janurary 16, 1969

This is not 949, but my 949 did have the same Polish/Paint scheme.
Wreckage with Tail Number 949 visable.
Wreckage showing owner as Air America
The Chopper that brought in a search team.
The Search team, guy in the blue shirt, is Eugene Hasenfus, remember him?
Eugene was an air freight specialist and bailed out and was captured in
Nicaragua and paraded for all the world to see. The pilot of the aircraft
was killed in the crash of the aircraft, and the Iran/Contra lashup was exposed.

These 2 photos are of the second C-47 at Sheppard.
I was part of the Flight Crew to deliver this aircraft
to a College in Illinois, now known as Lewis University.
The aircraft was sold to the University for ONE Dollar,
and I believe was later sold to a firm in St. Louis, MO.
The tail number of this one was 084, the rest, ???

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