The crash site is well documented in early Newspaper reports. I’ve wanted to get back there since as long as I can remember. There’s something important to me to be able to be in the place, alive, where my dad’s life ended.
In 2012 I was able to get a version of the crash report that seemed to have latitude and longitude coordinates pointing to the crash site. I converted them to GPS coordinates and my brother, Jason and I went to see if we could find any evidence of the crash. Crawling through brush in the humid summer heat, getting covered in ticks, we didn’t find anything but what might have been an old logging road.
In 2022 when I was scanning some family photo albums I discovered photos of a visit we took to the crash site with H.C. Varnadore, the guard unit commander who had been responsible for recruiting my dad to the unit, for his training on the F4 Phantoms and had been on the radio with him the day of the crash.
I reached out to H.C. and he believes he could find the crash site again.
If you have information about how we could locate the crash site with precision I would appreciate any tips. Email me: [email protected]
Update: We found it!