1958 Bomber Crash Memorial
Donation protected
A memorial for Outcome 54 and Outcome 55.
The families of two of the airmen killed in the awful crash of two B-52 bombers in Spokane, WA are planning a memorial. It was a beautiful late summer day in 1958. Outcome 55, a nearly new B-52D assigned to the 327th Bomb Squadron was completing a Cold War training mission and had called the Fairchild tower “just completed touch and go, going around for a full stop. End of mission.” It’s sister aircraft, Outcome 54, from the 325th Bomb Squadron of the 92nd Bomb Wing was making a simulated instrument approach. They never saw each other and collided over Airway Heights, WA two miles from the end of the runway at Fairchild AFB. The 327th Commander was killed along with 12 other officers and airmen. Three men survived. The families are planning a granite memorial to be placed in Memorial Park, Fairchild AFB, WA near the existing memorials for the 1994 B-52 accident and the Shell 77 KC-135 crash in Afganistan. We feel that it has been too long for the sacrifice of these Cold War warriors to have gone unrecognized. We hope that you can help us achieve our goal of making a permanent memorial to these airmen and, by extension, all the sacrifices of the Strategic Air Command during the Cold War. Anything helps. Thank you.
p.s. I set the goal here as half of what we need to do the memorial. The families are fully committed to this and are just asking for a little help.
Here are pictures of the site and a crude artist's conception of the memorial placement. It the first picture, you can see the memorial to the KC-135 crew killed in a crash in Afghanistan (Shell 77) in the distance where the pathway makes a turn to the right. Other memorials can also be found along this pathway.
The memorial will be 48" tall x 32" wide x 8" thick placed on a 10" stone base on a concrete foundation. It will be surrounded by crushed basaltic rock and a concrete landscape border. The granite will be quarried from South Dakota in a color appropriately named "silver cloud." Here's an artist's rendering. You can see other memorials in the background along the path.
The families of two of the airmen killed in the awful crash of two B-52 bombers in Spokane, WA are planning a memorial. It was a beautiful late summer day in 1958. Outcome 55, a nearly new B-52D assigned to the 327th Bomb Squadron was completing a Cold War training mission and had called the Fairchild tower “just completed touch and go, going around for a full stop. End of mission.” It’s sister aircraft, Outcome 54, from the 325th Bomb Squadron of the 92nd Bomb Wing was making a simulated instrument approach. They never saw each other and collided over Airway Heights, WA two miles from the end of the runway at Fairchild AFB. The 327th Commander was killed along with 12 other officers and airmen. Three men survived. The families are planning a granite memorial to be placed in Memorial Park, Fairchild AFB, WA near the existing memorials for the 1994 B-52 accident and the Shell 77 KC-135 crash in Afganistan. We feel that it has been too long for the sacrifice of these Cold War warriors to have gone unrecognized. We hope that you can help us achieve our goal of making a permanent memorial to these airmen and, by extension, all the sacrifices of the Strategic Air Command during the Cold War. Anything helps. Thank you.
p.s. I set the goal here as half of what we need to do the memorial. The families are fully committed to this and are just asking for a little help.
Here are pictures of the site and a crude artist's conception of the memorial placement. It the first picture, you can see the memorial to the KC-135 crew killed in a crash in Afghanistan (Shell 77) in the distance where the pathway makes a turn to the right. Other memorials can also be found along this pathway.
The memorial will be 48" tall x 32" wide x 8" thick placed on a 10" stone base on a concrete foundation. It will be surrounded by crushed basaltic rock and a concrete landscape border. The granite will be quarried from South Dakota in a color appropriately named "silver cloud." Here's an artist's rendering. You can see other memorials in the background along the path.
Organizer
Greg Staples
Organizer
Spokane, WA