[simpits-tech] Yankee Air Museum Burns

[Charles Morford]

Driving to the bank today I saw the smoke trail in the sky several miles in length.
At this point I thought it to be a factory although it seemed to originate in the 
general area of the museum. I turned on the radio to have my worst fears realized.
" The newscaster said the hanger of the museum was burning". Well my friends other
than static aircraft in the air park the hanger is the museum. which included a gift
shop, offices, shops, library, displays and other artifacts.
The structure itself was built in WWII and was all wood which had no fire protection.
It was located at Willow Run Airport and part of an aircraft assembly complex. The complex
produced over 8000 B-24 Liberator Bombers and was the first and last aircraft to be produced
on an assembly by Ford Motor rolling an aircraft out the door every 50 minutes. One use of the hanger
was that of a school to train mechanics on the B-24.
I am a member of the museum and other than working on the tour desk was in the process of copying
panels from a cockpit and had left earlier in the day. I left to go back to the museum on hearing the
news but as I suspected traffic was blocked by police a mile around the museum. I talked to an officer
who directed me to the city bldg where other members were congregating.
The news was bad, the structure had burned to the ground, literally.
Also lost was an L-39 Albatross (flyable), an F105 (static), a Lockheed Electra loadstar (being reassembled), a glider used in the Normandy invasion (being assembled), a one of a kind OA-10 Bronco, a link trainer.
The fire broke out shortly after closing time 4 pm Saturday starting in a second floor office area over
the gift shop and spread quickly. This is a flying museum and fortunately staff was still present at the
time of the fire and pulled the B-17, B-25 out of the hanger. then with flames overhead pushed the C-47
out by hand as it was tail in and no time to try and get a tug on it. These are flying aircraft and the jewels
of the museum. No doubt we will rebuild but it will take time.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.simpits.org/pipermail/simpits-tech/attachments/20041011/680c4075/attachment.html