Replying to a message of TIM RICHARDSON to MARK LEWIS:

 TR> This was around the time Sauer had claimed to have witnessed several
 TR> planes crashing at his base.

I was at Kadena AB on Okinawa for six years.  In that period there were precisely
*two* aircraft crashes.  One was a KC-135 that was hit with a strong gust
of crosswind
just as it lifted off (with a full fuel load, it was bound for the States,
nonstop); the pilot
overcorrected and the aircraft pranged into a low hill that stuck up like a
tooth just off and
a bit to the side of the east end of the runway (if that 'tooth' hadn't
been there he'd've made
iot because it was all low ground beyond, but it was and he didn't).  No
survivors (lot of space-A guys on it, too, going home on leave).  The other
'crash' was a B-52 (with a full bomb load) that caught fire on takeoff, the
pilot managed to get the thing stopped at the east end of the runway and
the crew was able to get out safely; the explosion woke people (including
me) up (it was 3 AM) for 20 miles around.  The only pieces of it big enough
to bother picking up were the four engine pods, the rest was aluminum
confetti.

There was a third aircaaft 'mishap' while I was there.  Involved a C-133.  I even met
the fellow who'd been the loadmaster.  Seems the pilot was flying his personal sports
car home to the states and *ordered* that it be placed in the front of the cargo bay.
The rest of the load was something big and heavy.  The loadmaster tried to
tell the guy
that the aircraft's balance would be all wrong and that the car should be
in the back.
The aircraft was loaded as the pilot *ordered*.  The pilot got it off the
ground, but it
was so tailheavy that it pulled up into a stall, flipped onto its back and
came down in
the East China sea jsut west of the end of the runway.  There was a picture published
that showed the airplane floating on its back.  I don't think anybody was
hurt, but the
aircraft, and presumably its cargo, was totalled.

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