Plum Island airport, bad landing, Flight Aware, book - 'Coffin Corner Boys' WWII

[Bob Eisenman]

Recently I'd been making the Plum Island airport my destination for long range rides on my Gotway Monster. More recently than that a news story made the news headlines. A pilot from Maine had overshot his landing and veered off the runway , coming to a stop in the bushes and trees beside the Plum Island airstrip.

http://www.msonewsports.com/newbury-fire-department-responds-aircraft-goes-woods-plum-island-airport/

TV and the online newspaper media posted reports of the incident, showing the planes tail number clearly as it and the tail remained sticking half way 'out of the woods'. I went to the website 'FlightAware' and checked for information on that tail number.

Corresponding to the news  media's information about the time of the landing attempt there was a last flight entry for the aircraft. However , the 'nearest airport' for the landing, with takeoff originating in Maine, was Beverly Airport. Beverly airport is a modern Multi runway airport, Plum Island is a less used single runway airport and each are separated by a goodly number of miles.

The option to report discrepancies in the posted flight information for the 'crashed landing' was dependent on enrolling as a member with FlightAware. After creating a login profile I forwarded the news story about the Plum Island bad landing in a note to FlightAware, noting that their posted 'nearest airport' for the landing attempt was not true.

Yesterday a newsletter from FlightAware arrived in my mail box.

The link led to a story about a WWII pilot (19 years old as a new pilot) whose B-17 bomber and crew of ten was shot down over France. He escaped to Switzerland after his parachute landing in France. In his 90s now he remains the last member of the crew who is still alive.  A book 'Coffin Corner Boys' describes the ordeal and a review of the book can be found at the URL

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-62157-626-6

The book is found on Amazon (Kindle)

https://www.amazon.com/Coffin-Corner-Boys-Harrowing-Nazi-Occupied-ebook/dp/B06XZ1SPZJ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531019987&sr=1-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=coffin+corner

And sections of the book can be read from 'Google books'

https://books.google.com/books/about/Coffin_Corner_Boys.html?id=afuTDgAAQBAJ

I read the Google books part where he jumps out of the plane, before a wing shears off of the B-17, and is plummeting (freefall) above the clouds before deploying his chute.

It looks like an interesting read.