Lorne 1962, USAF B57 Plane Crash
Two U.S. Air Force crew, Lieutenant Glen Harold Sprague 27 (pilot) and Lieutenant Bobby Edward Gelbrecht 26 (navigator), both of the 57th Weather Squadron USAF were killed in a tragic crash on Tuesday 16 October 1962, during the time of the Cuban missile crisis. It was one of four B57 aircraft in the American 57th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron. The squadron, which included two high-flying U2 aircraft, was based permanently at Avalon for an extended programme of air sampling. The B57 is an American-built version of the Canberra jet bomber. It operated up to a height of 40,000ft. The U2 aircraft flew at higher levels.
The B57 crash was about 2.5 miles (4 km) offshore in Bass Strait, between Lorne and Airey’s Inlet. The plane plunged into the sea close to a fisherman, Bryan Hunt, who was returning to Lorne Pier after pulling and baiting his craypots near Airey’s Inlet. It was flying at an altitude of about 500 feet, parallel to his cray boat. He said later that the engines sounded normal. Bryan sailed around the oil slick for about 40 minutes as wreckage floated to the surface including a wallet, several oxygen tanks and pieces of the fuselage. Meanwhile, people living in Fairhaven and Airey’s Inlet reported the crash to the Lorne Police and the squadron’s base at Avalon. In a matter of minutes other planes, including the USAF U2 jets, were patrolling the area searching for survivors. Bryan dropped an anchor with a line attached to a surface buoy and headed back to the Lorne Pier.
Sometime later, with a scuba diver (a young doctor from Apollo Bay) aboard, Bryan took his boat back to the site of the crash and the scuba diver went down and reported he found the B57 and could see the two pilots still strapped in their seats. The doctor said the B57 was in about 100 to 110ft of water. The canopy was on the aircraft, indicating the airmen had not ejected.
When Bryan arrived back at the Lorne pier, US military police had sealed the area off with guards. The salvage ship Kanimbla searched the area for four months in conjunction with a team of fifteen Australian Navy divers. These men lived in the Pacific Hotel. USAF salvage experts supervised all operations. Local fishermen with Bryan and two other boats, were charted to ferry divers and other personnel back and forwards to the salvage vessel. The airplane was never found.
Bryan Hunt with a piece of fuselage from the plane crash
The Age Newspaper of Thursday 18 October 1962 reported that “Navy and army skin divers yesterday recovered the bodies of the two men killed when their B57 crashed into the sea off Lorne on Tuesday.”
In an amazing coincidence, some 16 years later in 1979, Bryan was working nylon mesh nets in the crash area and recovered in his net a piece of fuselage from the B57 plane that he witnessed crashing into the sea in 1962.
Sources:
- Canberra Times 17 October 1962, accesses on TROVE 14 October 2024
- https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/260241
- Geelong Advertiser 2 May 1979 newspaper article
- Jim Cox USAF
- “Feel the Sea Wind”, Ian C. Hunt
- Roger Carr, web page www.derwentshore.com/B-57_Down.htm accessed 24 June 2007
- The Age newspaper, Thursday 18 October 1962, page 12
