Message posted by JimK on March 26, 2003 at 22:11:28 PST:
Identifying the unknown airplane in Tom Mahoud's Hunt for 928 has interested me almost as much as the A12. I spent about three hours at the unknown site ESE of Carp in early March 2003 and have made a tentative ID. If anyone can confirm or refute it, I'd be glad to know. Trapped in a bush there was a nameplate for an APS-209 radar. It shows (http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/jetds/an-apr2aps.html) as being used on the early F-111's and was later replaced with a different model. No other aircraft type is mentioned for the APS-109. On the F-111 website there is a tailnumber page (http://f-111.net/t_no_A.htm) which shows ten F-111's went down in Nevada. Six went down on the Nellis range and I have specific locations of two of these from other sources. Another crashed near Indian Springs and one crashed on Mt. Pequop. One went down "60 miles north of Nellis" and the last crashed 60 miles NNE of Nellis. This last one is pretty close to the site of the unknown aircraft. It was 66-0032 and went down on 8 May 1968. The F-111 site does not list any fatalities with this aircraft so apparently the crew got out OK. It also suggests the cause may have been massive structural failure in flight. From the distribution of the parts it appears the aircraft was headed in a northerly direction. Most of the heavier parts are to the north and northwest of the burned patch. A lot of lighter debris is off to the northeast but may or may not be due to prevailing wind since much of it is locallized instead of being scattered all over the place. Most of the painted parts were white but there was some red and a small amount of green.
P
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