Lake Michigan Hellcat Recovery

[Russ Matthews]

Read the article here...

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/michigan-historic-preservation-office-and-mshda-announce-recovery-of-wwii-fighter-plane-from-lake-michigan-73613127.html

[pilotart]

Page Field (as well as Buckingham Air Base) in Fort Myers Trained thousands of WW2 Airmen and a lot of planes were lost.

The local Historical Museum has what's left of a P39 Aircobra that 'landed' (Pilot survived) in Estero Bay,
ending up against Mangroves at the edge and I'm sure that I could have Snook Casted right on it and never even recognised it as Airplane Remains.

Sometimes the discovery of a lost aircraft can be worth more than just "...the eventual interpretation of the plane. ..."

They thought they had found Batista's Gold, but instead discovered not only 'closure' for a family, but were able to establish that the Army Air Corps inital finding of "Pilot Error" was probably wrong and the true cause had been Mechanical Failure of the B26 Marauder {"one-a-day in Tampa Bay"} Aircraft.

[Russ Matthews]

First video of the recovered wreck is now online...

http://cbs2chicago.com/video/?id=65131@wbbm.dayport.com