19 Comments:

• I seem to remember a plane crash that happened somewhere down by Edinger and the 55 freeway which killed the president and vice pres of In-n-Out.
  ...Leo

  By  leogent, at January 04, 2008 8:48 AM  

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• I remember that crash too, but it was not the same one. I've been trying to research the time, but that was a long time ago. I must have been between 1947 (we moved to S.A.) and 1955 (when I got a new bike). I remember rushing on my old Shwinn "springer", and seeing the smoke rise out of a huge hole in the front yard of the house (without a front wall).

  By  CoxPilot, at January 05, 2008 3:11 PM  

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• i lived on the 300 block of south broadway in santa ana when this occured,it had to have been in the early 1950s and no later then 1954 as i was playing in the back yard with my sister (she was born in late 1949)and we heard a loud howl followed by a huge boom,my grandmother came running out the back door to see what happened,when my dad came home from work that nite we drove over by the crash site,the aircraft demolished a house but as i remember no one was home at the time,the pilot was lost and i believe the aircraft was a grumman f9f out of el toro

  By  Anonymous, at January 06, 2008 8:48 AM  

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• Anonymous: Thank goodness! I thought I was going nuts. I've tried to look at several air crash record sites, but nothing. I also remember that a boy was on his bike a few doors down from the crash, and was blown off when the plane hit. We all thought it was neat that he landed on the porch across the street.

  By  CoxPilot, at January 06, 2008 11:34 AM  

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• I saw a crash at the Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in 1959. It was a Grumman Sub Chaser and it just did a small turn and went straight down onto the runway. I saw the plane fall and then behind the buildings a huge fireball when it hit. Sadly all aboard were killed.
  I never knew there was more than one plane crash at that time.

  By  Barry, at January 17, 2008 9:34 PM  

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• This gives me a chance to ask a question that has bugged me for many years- I grew up in what was then unincorporated OC, at Prospect and Fairhaven, and in the very early 1960s, I remember so well sitting in my sandbox in our back yard, hearing a very loud plane, and looking up, I saw a plane flying overhead so low that I could actually see the rivets and metal plates of the fuselage. I was likely 5 years old at the time, but it seemed to me that the plane was so low that it was just above the tops of the eucalyptus trees that lined our fence. I did hear that this line of trees was a visual aid to pilots going into JWA, but this plane didn't look like those...if JWA was even open back then.
  
  Can anyone give me a clue as to what this mystery plane was, why it was flying so low, etc? Its an itch I have not been able to scratch for over 40 years! ^_^

  By  PikachuMom, at January 22, 2008 9:58 PM  

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• The jet that rashed was into a home on Broadway one block south of edinger. It was 1954 or 1955 and it was from El Toro.
  
  The unidentified plane requested in another response was the Horton Wingless. It used to fly around the County.
  
  What more?

  By  Anonymous, at January 23, 2008 5:58 AM  

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• It was after 1951. The crash site was close to Martin Elementary school (which opened in 1951).
  
  For some reason I recall it was on Parton St. just below Wilshire. I recall seeing the site - took out one house.
  
  I definitely recall the story going around was that the pilot didn't bail because he was trying to ride it out past the residential area. Too bad because at that time he would have only had to make it a short distance past Delhi (now Warner) to clear residences.
  
  I just might have a press clipping from The Register tucked away in a box. If so I'll get back with the info soon.

  By  Anonymous, at February 01, 2008 6:50 PM  

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• Yesterday I posted anonymously recalling the crash was on Parton. I did find my copy of the then "Santa Ana Register" dated Thursday, July 17, 1952 with the banner headline:
  Navy Identifies Victim Of Jet Crash
  
  Here's a digest of what occurred:
  
  The jet crashed at 3:30PM on Wednesday, July 16, 1952.
  
  It was a Navy Banshee F2H-1 piloted by Lt. Robert N. Anderson out of Los Alamitos Naval Air Station.
  
  Anderson, from Los Angeles, was a Navy reserve officer on a training flight.
  
  The plane experienced some sort of unknown trouble at about 15,000 feet. The plane made an uncontrollable dive and began breaking up before impact.
  
  It crashed into an unoccupied house at 1305 S. Parton - the second house from the corner of Parton and Wilshire on the eastside of Parton. The house was totally destroyed leaving a crater up to eighteen feet deep in places.
  
  The next door house on the S.E corner at 1801 S. Parton was partially damaged. It too was unoccupied.
  
  Houses on the west side of Parton were damaged by the concussion from the impact and flying debris. Debris scattered as far as Flower St. - two streets to the west of Parton.
  
  The pilot was the only fatality. One neighbor woman was injured by a piece of debris that came through the wall of her dining room striking her on her side. A ten-year-old boy playing in his backyard on South Garnsey was almost hit by a piece of debris.
  
  A cocker spaniel, the pet belonging to the owners of the demolished house, was at the house at the time of the crash but was not injured.
  
  In those days there was no NTSB to investigate. FAA and DoD did no lenghty closure of the area to conduct an investigation as they would today. After the pilot's body was recovered the evening of the crash the Navy filled in the crater.
  
  The Navy released a report the following day that the pilot could have ejected however it was determined he was attempting to ride it out and was heading toward the almost unpopulated area not far to the south.
  
  I lived just a few blocks west of the crash. Like many others at the time I heard the loud and eerie sound of the jet as it sped towards the ground. Like others I curiously went to the crash site. Expecting to see wide-spread devastation I remember it was so confined. I found a piece of debris - a jagged piece of riveted aluminum about ten inches in length with some yellowish primer - in the middle of Flower Street. I kept that piece as a macabre souvenir for many years.
  
  The crash - especially the noise of the doomed plane overhead - left a stigma with many of us children and our mothers for a period of time. I suspect today we would be traumatized and various local, state, and federal agencies would rush a plethora of counselors to our collective aide.
  
  We all bore the aftermath but it did leave many of us, for quite some time, craning our necks to anxiously watch the sky as planes flew overhead. In those days there were aircraft sounds unlike what we hear today. As one person posted a captured German Horton Wingless did fly over Orange County quite often. It had its own distinctive sound. Likewise there always seemed to be the lengthy drone of high flying bombers. Those planes seemed to attract the most gazers for the longest times. The only aircraft that didn't startle folks and seemed to bring a sense of peace were the lumbering Navy blimps out of L.T.A. as they came and went on their coastal patrols.

  By  92707, at February 02, 2008 11:14 AM  

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• 92707: Thanks for the research, and comprehensive answer to my original question. We lived in the 1400 block of South Olive, a short bike ride to the crash site.

  By  CoxPilot, at February 03, 2008 8:15 PM  

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• There seems to be some misunderstanding here about the Horton Wingless aircraft,since my uncle was the treasurer of the Horton aircraft co and i have known Bill Horton from the 1950s up until his death in Las Vegas in january of 2000 i feel i can clear up some of the confusion,this aircraft is not the german built Horten bros wingless but was designed and built by Bill Horton in a 3 way partner ship with Howard Hughes and Harlow Curtice of General Motors fame,the aircraft was not rivited construction but was a welded steel frame covered with a fabric skin and powered by 2 Pratt and Whitney R985 radial engines the aircraft logged around 160 hrs of flight time before Bill had a falling out with Hughes,Was railroaded to prison on trumped up charges and his aircraft was moved to the bone yard at the south end of the Orange Co airport and destroyed,Las Vegas reporter George Knapp of klas tv channel 8 aired a fantastic 2 part interview with bill in nov of 1997 that explained the whole story in detail

  By  Anonymous, at February 04, 2008 2:19 AM  

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• Thanks for the clarification about the Horton mystique. When it sat on the south end of the airport, long before it was Orange County Airport and folks still called it Martin, people used to point and tell the story about a captured German aircraft. Looks like the wrong Horton. I recall it disappeared along with all the PBY's that were deteriorating in the same place.

  By  92707, at February 04, 2008 1:45 PM  

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• As a kid, my friends and I would ride our bikes out to the Santa Ana airport (mid 50's) and climb around and sit in any plane that was open. The list included the Horton wingless, Paul Mantz red P-51 and movie plane, the replica of the Spirit of St. Louis, the PBY's, and several British Jets (forget the name). We would eat in the diner, and then head home.

  By  CoxPilot, at March 06, 2008 7:28 PM  

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• the british jets refered to in the above post were de havelin vampire jets,they were made of plywood

  By  Anonymous, at March 10, 2008 6:45 PM  

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• this is for pikachumom, back at about that time a 14 or 15 year old kid stole his fathers private plane out of OC airport and buzzed Santa Ana & North Tustin before managing to get it back and landing it at the airport. I was watching him in SA and he missed the roof of the Tower factory by about 3 ft. Bet it's the same incident

  By  Anonymous, at March 21, 2008 9:54 AM  

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• I was born at St. Joseph Hospital in 1949 and we lived on the 1100 block of South Magnolia. Only three when the plane crashed, I remember my mom and sister and I walking over to the crash site the next day. My sister was in afternoon kindergarten at Glenn L. Martin school and had just been released when the crash happened. My mom and I had walked to Martin to pick her up and were about halfway home when we saw the plane come down and heard the awful crash. It frightenes me to this day to think that if the crash had occurred a few minutes earlier and a few blocks to the north west, hundreds of school kids and teachers would have died. I always wondered if the pilot aimed away from the school as his final act of humanity.

  By  Anonymous, at April 06, 2008 2:07 PM  

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• The crash was about 1952. My friends and I were playing ball at Santa Ana High School and watched the plane come down. We raced to the site and saw the hole in the ground.
  I moved to Anaheim in Summer of 1953 so it had to summer of '52.
  RF Salt Lake City.

  By  Anonymous, at April 29, 2008 6:59 AM  

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• In response to the comment about "if the plane crash had happened a few blocks..." The pilot of the plane stayed with the craft to try to guide it away from buildings, schools and homes if possible. He gave his life to try to save others' lives. The is the pilot creed, stay with the plane if it is going down in a populated area to try to avoid other deaths. He paid the ultimate price. No one but he was injured.

  By  Anonymous, at April 29, 2008 9:25 AM  

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• It was in the summer of 1952. I was playing in my backyard with a friend, my house being located on south Garnsey, 2nd house from the corner, directly inline with the house on Parton street which was the crash site. I was 12, and my friend and I looked up and saw this plane obviously in trouble, when all of a sudden it turned downward, and headed straight down. As it got closer it looked like a wing broke off, and then there was this terrific thud and concussion with dirt, and pieces of house and plane in the air. My friend grabbed me and we ducked behind a portion of our house as the debris fell all around us. We immediately ran through the yard behind us and across Parton to see a very damaged house and a large hole. It was unearthly quiet for a moment then many people began to arrive. My mom was at the local grocery store and heard it had crashed on Glenn Martin schoolyard, which cause great concern as my sisters were there playing. We heard later that the pilot had considered crashing there, but did not because of the children. He then gave his life to protect as many as he could. My dad was a reporter, and I called him to report this, and thus gave him a good scoop! For months after little pieces of aluminum, green colored, were found in our garden and yard.

  By  Anonymous, at June 01, 2008 3:35 PM  

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