1957 airplane crash is story of tragedy, redemption

Historian and writer Bill Powers of Rutland will present a fascinating story of tragedy and redemption at a special meeting of the Castleton Historical Society, on Thursday, June 4. Powers will be joined by aviation-crash expert Brian Lindner of Waterbury for a discussion about the October 1957 crash of a U.S. Army, Canadian-made, De Havilland L-20 Beaver and the deaths of four U.S. servicemen onboard. At the age of 12, Powers—along with his father, Dr. William Powers, M.D., Rutland County's medical examiner at the time—was an eyewitness at the crash site as a 12-year-old in 1957. Ironically, he played an important role in rediscovering the crash site after it was lost for more than half a century. On the morning of Oct. 2, 1957, Pilot Capt. Eual Cathey, 33, and three fellow officers—Col. David M. Perkins, 51 Col. Emery Hyde, 48, Lt. Col. Clinton Merrill, 44—took off from Governor's Island Field in New York Harbor bound for Burlington, Vt. Flying up the Hudson River Valley, the plane made it into Vermont air space, but bad weather caused it to veer of course and crash into the east side of a heavily forested mountain, somewhere off the Long Trail, near Brandon Gap. Pilot Cathey left behind four young sons and a wife who was pregnant with twin girls. Powers said his father had carried an 8mm movie camera with him to the crash site and the brief footage is the only newsreel of the wreckage, found 10 days after the crash. "When the airplane came in, it clipped a tree and flipped over; it landed belly up," Powers said. "My father and I—along with an Air Force medic—appear in several Army and newspaper photos taken Oct. 14 at the scene." Powers said that three of the Army officers burned to death in the plane. The bodies were found under the engine in the wreckage. "As I remember it," Powers said, "I only saw one identifiable body that was burned. There wasn't much left of the other men. But Col. Perkins got away from the crash somehow. The only visible sign of trauma on him was that he was missing his right ear. He had lived a couple of days following the crash. He had tied a bandana or handkerchief around his head; he also tried to start a fire in his shoe. He was down hill from the crash site in an open area. Now how he got through all the underbrush in his condition no one will ever know." To compound the tragedy of the crash, it took 10 days before a rescue crew reached the site. "Because the Army had some misinformation, they though the L-20 had landed in Hartford, Conn.," Powers said. "They were a digit off on the plane's serial number so they didn't find it for 10 days." Perkins might have been rescued if medics got to him in time. "As I remember Col. Perkins, he was in full uniform," he added. "To me he didn't look that bad but he was dead." In 1958, Mrs. Cathey joined Dick Herd, director of operations for the former Vermont Department of Aeronautics, and hiked to the site where he husband died—eventually located in the Town of Chittenden, approximately 2.25 air miles south of Brandon Gap Road. After that, the crash faded into history, as did its exact location. Fifty years later, Powers said, Capt. Cathey's son, Jeff, a U.S. Navy fighter pilot who was age 3 when his father died, mounted a search for the wreck with the help of aviation-wreck expert Brian Lindner of Waterbury. Powers helped with his eyewitness recollection. According to Powers, Jeff Cathey had wrestled with many unresolved issues about the meaning of his life in the decades following his father's tragic death. "Efforts to find the crash site took Brian on a flight over the crash site area and also on many bushwhacking forays," according to Powers. Possible crash sites reported since 1957 have included Bloodroot Mountain, Brandon Mountain, and Lookoff Mountain. In the end, the site was on the slope of Far Peak. "We hadn't heard of Far Peak back in 1957," Powers noted. Powers met a Rutland County map dowser, who ended up nearly pinpointing the wreck using a simple pendulum device. "I met the map dowser in April 2009. I gave the dower's mark on the map to archeologist Dave Lacey of the Green Mountain National Forest. I asked him to give me GPS coordinates for the dowser's mark. Then in May, while searching for the wreck, the search team took the dower's GPS coordinates and—I kid you not—found the wreck, exactly where the dowser said it would be," Powers said. This amazing story of a family's tragedy and redemption comes full circle when Cathey family members finally visited the wreckage to find closure. Cathey family members hiked to Far Peak and then carried out a heavy, metal wing strut of the wrecked De Havilland. The strut was later restored. According to Powers, "Jeff Cathey had the strut refurbished at a machine shop where he lives in Tampa, Fla. It was repainted Army green. And on the side, sticking out, are two small steps—'That's the last two steps my father took alive,' Jeff said." For specifics about the time and location of Bill Powers's and Brian Lindner's presentation of the 1957 airplane crash—including a screening of Dr. Powers's historic 8mm movie clip—on Thursday, June 4, in Castleton, please contact the Castleton Historical Society at 802-468-5105 or e-mail: blueshoehh@hotmail.com.

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1957 airplane crash is story of tragedy, redemption

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