Accident Description
The aircraft departed RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk at 0917 LT for a Radar Navigation Flight, scheduled to be followed by four hours of air-to-air refueling practice with a Boeing B-50. At 1103 LT, the crew contacted the controller at Prestwick upon entering the Scottish Flight Information Region, reporting an altitude of approximately 14,500 feet in visual meteorological conditions.
Seven minutes later, witnesses on the ground observed the aircraft descending out of cloud cover over Carsphairn at an altitude between 1,500 and 2,000 feet on a north-northwest heading. Witnesses stated that the engines sounded different from those of aircraft that normally overflew the area. The aircraft then turned to a southeast heading before stalling and entering a spin from which it did not recover before impacting the ground in a deep gully at the edge of a field.
Upon impact, the fuel tanks, containing an estimated 8,000 US gallons, exploded and completely destroyed the aircraft, scattering wreckage over a considerable area.
Crew
The crew members on board were: 1st Lt Joseph A. O'Leary (pilot), 1st Lt George Merrill Foote (copilot), 1st Lt Claude Jacques Hayden Jr. (navigator), S/Sgt Noel M. Poppof (flight engineer), Cpt Tennant A. Metz (radar operator), Cpl John B. Simpson (radio operator), Cpl John P. Finnegan (scanner), 1st Lt Jack W. Kern (boom instructor), Sgt Henry H. Hill (boom operator), S/Sgt Wallace L. Scott (boom operator), and Cpl Reginald Y. Russell (boom operator).