Our Town: A daring escape from a burning Scott Field airplane
On Oct. 7, 1932, a routine flight from what is now Scott Air Force Base to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, turned into a narrow brush with death shortly after takeoff.
Here’s how the O’Fallon Progress reported the hair-raising incident.
“A Curtiss A-3 observation-type army plane caught fire near Scott Field Friday morning, and Maj. V. E. Prichard and Staff Sergt. James E. Clifton saved their lives by ‘bailing out’ in their parachutes.
“The plane was flying at an altitude of about 3,000 feet when Maj. Prichard, a passenger, leaped out. He said he could not see Sergt. Clifton, who was piloting the plane at the time, because of the smoke from a blaze on the motor. Sergt. Clifton leaped a moment later from a wing. He suffered a sprained back when he landed. Maj. Prichard was uninjured.
“The plane landed in a cornfield in Silver Creek bottoms, about two miles east from the field. It was wrecked and a total loss.
“Sergt. Clifton had flown the plane from Maxwell Field, Alabama, to pick up Maj. Prichard, an artillery officer, and take him to Maxwell Field for an inspection. He had just taken off on the return flight when the accident occurred.
“The cause of the fire was undetermined.
“According to Clifton, who is 27, everything went all right until they reached 2,000 feet. Then smoke near the engine began pouring out indicating that the plane was on fire. Clifton then kept climbing to an altitude of 3,000 feet so that the Major would have plenty of room for his drop—he had never jumped before.
“After the Major made a successful leap Clifton started his ship downward in the hopes of making a safe landing. Choking from the effects of smoke at an altitude of 600 feet he crawled out on a wing, grasped the ring of his parachute and fell off. When he regained consciousness he was lying on his back in a field.”
75 years ago, July 22, 1948
Joseph Panter, operator of Panter’s tavern at Shiloh had a narrow escape from probable serious injury when a steel half barrel of beer exploded in a cooler under the bar Sunday afternoon.
A number of patrons were in the tavern at the time but no one was injured. A section of a faucet struck the chest of Ardell Kreutzer, a patron, but he was not hurt.
Panter was behind the bar at the time. He had just drawn a glass of beer, and moved from his usual position to tune in a television set, when the top blew out of the barrel.
The impact blew open the cooler doors, shattered the top of the cooler, and struck the ceiling, leaving it with a hole. Foaming beer spouted and drenched the surroundings, being blown with such force that it reached the ceiling. Several beer glasses were hurled off the bar to the floor. A strange incident was that not a single bottle on the back of the bar was disturbed.
Patrons in the tavern at the time as well as the owner are of the opinion that had Panter been drawing beer at the time he would have probably been seriously injured or killed.
Damage to the equipment and ceiling is estimated at about $1,000.
50 years ago, July 19, 1973
A special census of the City of O’Fallon will be taken the week of July 23.
Applications for work as census enumerators may be picked up at the office of City Clerk Robert E. Bode, in City Hall. Applicants must be 18-years-old or older and the applications are to be taken to the Census supervisor at the Enterprise Grange Building, Washington and Vine at 10 a.m., July 23.
The census will determine the city’s revenue from state income tax and motor fuel tax funds.
The city’s 1970 population was given as 9365 and the O’Fallon estimate is 10,500. Persons who will be out of town the week of July 23 should go to the city clerk’s office before leaving to fill in an enumeration card. In that way, the city will receive correct benefits.
The special census is undertaken at the city’s expense. O’Fallon expects additional income as a result of the count.
