Plane Crash in South Portland, 1944
Submitted March 10, 2003 by Robert Dyke
I would like to comment on the plane crash in South Portland in July 1944, across from Redbank on Westbrook Street, as one of the few true witnesses to that event. On that day my father, brother and myself were haying on the extreme northwest corner of the farm, known as the Dyke Farm very close to Crockett Corner which is Westbrook Street and Broadway.
The aircraft in question had made several passes over us on a north south axis flying very low, his southerly flight path would have taken him toward the Scarborough beaches. There wasn't any problem with weather, ceiling, or fog on his last fly over. My father said off hand, "he better gain some altitude", and seconds later it crashed.
The offical report was flawed in many ways about the actual event. The report had the aircraft flying on the north side of Long Creek and turning for the airport. The aircraft never flew that approach, it was much too sharp a radius for that aircraft and would have required him to fly in a complete circle. His flight path over us would not have allowed a straight in landing. Being familiar with the approach of commerical aircraft at the time, said plane was too far west. Commercial aircraft flew directly over our house, which was quite a bit up Westbrook street. The report said he flew into a fog bank. We were very familiar with fog and how it would roll in Fore River and Long Creek first. As I said before, we were haying, and farmers don't hay in the fog. We were only yards from Long Creek and there wasn't any fog there. The report said the pilot was "hotdogging" flying over the runway, waving to people on the ground, which in itself says there wasn't fog over the runway. I believe the pilot was confused by the appearance of Redbank, which wasn't there when he left for the service, and was trying to approach the runway west of Redbank. There wasn't any reason for that pilot to fly that aircraft into the ground that day, weather wasn't a factor at all that day. Due to the many flyovers he made I believe he ran out of fuel, and I also believe on his last flyover his engines didn't have the same hum to them that that previous passes had.
We were at the crash site in a matter of minutes, long before fire trucks and reporters were there. We left shortly after the fire trucks arrived in order to get back to the farm to finish haying, there was nothing we could do at the crash site to help. That was a terrible sight and that's why I remember the event so well.