The Crash of a P-38 Lightning

Daniel Haston was nine when his mother urgently called him into their back yard. It was a sunny day in late July 1944. His mother was hearing an unusual noise coming from the sky. The sound was a P-38 Lightning airplane undergoing "compressibility."

The P-38 first came off the assembly line in 1939. Initially unknown, the plane's design had a flaw that only showed up at high speeds. Yet another pilot was to find out about the problem.

The US Army Air Corps sent 2nd Lt. Gene Aabel to the Muskogee Army Airfield for training in the twin-engine, twin-boom Lightning. That day's flight was just another training flight at the 36th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron stationed at the Muskogee field.

The reconnaissance models of the P-38 had cameras mounted in place of the usual .50 caliber machine guns. With its long-range capabilities, the Lightning plane was an ideal platform for making flights to the heavily fortified home islands of Japan.

Lt. Aabel's flight on July 28th began without any problems. The sunny sky made perfect flying weather. He had a series of familiarity maneuvers to perform that Friday afternoon. His section of students was alternating classroom studies with flying practice with another section that day. The student that flew the same Lightning that morning had no problems.

With the day's assigned flight maneuvers accomplished, Aabel decided to spend the remaining amount of his flight time in high altitude flying. He was already wearing his oxygen mask when he reached 30,000 feet. The plane was operating perfectly.

With his fuel gauge showing only 20 gallons left, Lt. Aabel peeled off to return to the Muskogee Army Airfield. As the plane's altimeter unwound, the speed gauge steadily increased.

Compressibility began somewhere about six hundred miles per hour. That was when air ceased flowing over the wings. Instead, it began packing up in front of the wings. The first indication to Lt. Aabel was the plane's sudden unresponsiveness. He found he could neither turn left or right, nor pull up out of his dive.

Now in a nearly vertical dive with increasing speed, Lt. Aabel knew he was in trouble. His remaining control was only increasing or decreasing his speed. He knew increasing speed was a fatal option. Yanking back on the throttle to reduce his speed produced a loud bang.

Being thrown against the canopy caused a moment of confusion. When he looked around, he found part of one wing and one boom broken off. There was also fire pouring out of the surviving wing near the wheel well. The plane ceased diving, but instead began falling at a much slower rate.

Sgt. Bob Bell, now a Tulsan, was driving from the airfield back into Muskogee when he heard the loud bang. Bill Lowery, who lived on Baltimore Street, was lounging in the shade of a front yard tree when he spotted the falling plane. Dale Gilbert was rounding up livestock on the family farm near present-day Gulick Street when he heard the noise of the Lightning breaking up.

With the plane no longer accelerating toward earth, Lt. Aabel was able to crawl out of the cockpit. When he looked up, he found the plane above him. He was certain that if he pulled his ripcord, the airplane's fuselage would fall on top of his parachute and collapse it. As the pilot and plane parts continued to fall, slowly Lt. Aabel floated far enough away to open his parachute. The plane crashed to the ground into a field without hitting man or beast. Lt. Aabel quickly landed nearby because his chute opened just soon enough for him to land safely.

Sgt. Bell arrived first. He helped Lt. Aabel gather up the parachute and walk to the highway. Shortly thereafter, the base ambulance arrived to carry him back for examination. A base fire truck arrived to put out the grass fire caused by the crash.

Extensive evaluations revealed that Lt. Aabel had too little training to have avoided compressibility. He quickly re-entered his training cycle and shipped out. He served until the war's end flying reconnaissance missions in P-38 Ligthnings. He was one of the few who lived to tell investigators about Lightning compressibility problems.