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Introduction: The crash occurred on November 7th, 1963, north
of Hanau, West Germany, which is east of Frankfurt. Pilot 1LT
Eugene J. Taylor and observer SP5 William F. Collins, both of
Co B, 503d Avn Bn, were killed. The Mohawk flew full bore into
a grove of oak trees on top of a mountain. As I recall the only
intact piece of the aircraft was one wing. What was left of the
bodies was removed before the battalion got there. It was a real
tragedy. Both men left widows and multiple children. I was 503rd's
Information Specialist and S-2 clerk at the time, and the battalion
was engaged in a field problem. The day before, I had been taking
pictures at the airfield, including a Mohawk taking off. Little
did I know that on the next day I would be helping to police
up what was left of a Mohawk on a mountain. I've been trying
to track down the names of the casualties since I joined the
OV-1
Mohawk Association. Vickie Hendrix, FOIA Officer, USASC,
spent countless hours searching through microfilm records to
find the names for us. She deserves a very special THANK YOU.
- From Otto Machacek, 16 May, 2001
Subsequently, more details of the crash have been provided below
by LTC Bill Perrin, Ret., formerly of 503rd Avn Bn, and aka
Hornet-6:
On that morning, I was the S-2 of the battalion and was leading
the ground convoy back to Hanau. The weather was drizzling light
rain at the forward airfield where the Hawks were. There were
low clouds in the mountains between the forward airfield and
Hanau. I suspect that some of the pilots were going to try to
make it back to Hanau VFR if possible and, if they ran into real
weather, file an Instrument Flight plan in the air and go on
into Hanau IFR.
Lt. Taylor was flying VFR when he encountered the low visibility
and the mountain area about the same time. He flew down a valley
and ran into reduced visibility and made a 180-degree turn to
come back out of the valley but entered into IFR conditions.
He cleared a hilltop by 10 feet but ran directly into a grove
of large hardwood trees that he could not see. The Hawk disintegrated
as it went thru the trees.
I have wondered all these years why, when he went IFR, he
didn't add full power, pull back on the stick and climb up until
he broke out into VFR conditions? On that day the low clouds
were such that he would have broken out at 1500-2000 ft. Giving
him the benefit of the doubt, he may have been afraid that, if
he did climb, he might have a collision with one of the other
aircraft going back to Hanau. That same thing happened to me
in Vietnam. Without hesitation, I pushed in full power and climbed
up thru the low clouds and broke out into bright clear sunshine
at less than 2000 ft, and flew back to Anke VFR.
Lt. Col. Davenport, our Bn. CO, was in another Jeep in the
convoy behind me. I called him and asked if he had been monitoring
the FM traffic about an OV-1 crashing in the mountains? He replied
that he had. We made several calls and determined that one Hawk
was indeed down. He asked for my recommendation as to who the
accident investigation office should be? I replied, Capt. Drexel
E. Sanders, who at that time was the ASTA Plat Ldr. in B Company.
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