Long Island Sound – April 18, 1945
P-47 Thunderbolt – U.S. Air Force Photo
On April 18, 1945, Flight Officer Salvatore Spano, 21, took off from the Suffolk County Army Air Field on Long Island, New York, in a P-47D Thunderbolt fighter plane for a navigation training flight. While off the coast of Connecticut, his airplane was observed to drop to a low level and then bounce off the surface of the water. It then appeared that the aircraft recovered, but it then crashed into the water off the coast of Milford, Connecticut, and sank immediately. When the aircraft was recovered the pilot was still inside.
Lt. Spano is buried in Mount Saint Benedict Cemetery in Bloomfield, Connecticut.
Source:
Book: “Fatal Army Air Forces Aviation Accidents In The United States, 1941 – 1945” by Anthony J. Mireles, C. 2006.
www.findagrave.com
