A Fateful Flight

A Fateful Flight. . On June 19, 1943 a routine training flight took the lives of seven world war two airmen who crashed here in what is now Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area., Their flight departed from Sanford Naval Air Station, once filled with metal hangars containing fighter and patrol aircraft and approximately 1,700 women and men committed to the work of winning the war., These men would have queued up on the busy runway to complete training exercises or patrol the nearby Atlantic coastline for German submarines. With partly-cloudy skies, the day would be another normal, if hot, afternoon in the middle of World War II., However, this flight was not normal. At 3:00 p.m. on that June day, their Lockheed Ventura PV-1 twin engine medium bomber inexplicably spun out of control before slamming into the ground, exploding and killing all aboard., World War II didn't end for two more years and, although this was the first plane crash at the Sanford Air Station, it wouldn't be the last. The loss of these brave men reminds us of the costs of war borne by service personnel and their families.