6 a.m. EST
November 13, 2015
Brian Lindner is a local aviation historian living in Waterbury. He began to research and document the crashes into Lake Champlain many years ago.
When it comes to airplanes is Lake Champlain a northern cousin to the famous Bermuda Triangle? At least 27 aircraft have crashed in or on the lake; far more than almost any strip of land of the same size in this region.
Twenty pilots and their passengers have died. One of the planes was a corporate jet with five on board that vanished in 1971 and has never been found despite many high tech searches.
Some of the planes remain fully intact and resting on the bottom while the broken wreckage of others is scattered across the muddy bottom.
The greatest mystery is of jet number N400CP that vanished on a very cold, snowy and windy night on Jan. 27, 1971.
The twin-engine, corporate jet took off from Burlington at 7:52 p.m. heading northwesterly over the Ethan Allen tower. Within two minutes the jet began its left turn to head towards their destination of Providence, Rhode Island.
Three minutes after takeoff and while the jet was over Lake Champlain air traffic controllers heard a momentary radio transmission with nobody speaking.
If that call was from N400CP it was their last. When the radar sweep came around moments later the jet was gone.
13 searches for mystery plane
Aerial searches over the next few days turned up no sign of the plane. In April five pieces of wreckage were found on shore in the area of Shelburne Point.
No other sign of the plane and the five men on board has ever been found.
At least 13 searches have been conducted with the latest having taken place last July.
Each search has used the best technology of the time and included submarines, infrared, side-scanning sonar and much more.
Rumors have long persisted that the plane was loaded with gold or cash.
Other rumors claim the plane ducked below radar and the five on board all flew off to new lives in foreign counties. While these rumors add excitement and mystery to the story, they are utterly false.
In fact, the five men were generally strangers to each other and connected only by a possible business venture in Burlington. Five families still grieve over the loss.
The loss of N400CP into Lake Champlain was not the first involving fatalities.
The first was in 1936 when a single-engine WACO flying from New York to Montreal was suddenly seen diving from a storm cloud and hitting the water at high speed off Essex, NY.
Four people were on board but only the body of a female passenger was ever recovered and that was two months later.
In August of that year New York authorities finally managed to snag the main section of wreckage.
They winched it to the surface where they were able to spot some of the bodies for mere seconds before the plane broke loose never to be seen again.
A landing on the ice
On a clear and cold night in January of 1945 an Avro Anson twin-engine trainer with a crew of four from the Royal Canadian Air Force found itself lost on a training mission in the middle of the night.
They determined it was best to land at Burlington but in those days the airport closed at night. The lights were turned off and everyone had gone home until the next day.
Unable to contact the airport by radio or see the runway in the darkness the crew opted to set down on the ice off Thayer Beach in Colchester.
Flight Officer Peter G. Christiesen made such a perfect landing on the ice and in near total darkness that the plane had its propellers replaced and flown off the ice the next day.
Two years later, on a summer day, Lee McDougal was attempting to land his amphibious Republic SeaBee off Westport, New York.
McDougal apparently forgot to retract his landing wheels as was required for a water landing.
This caused the hull to be damaged in the impact. The plane remained floating as boaters attempted to tow it to safety.
Unfortunately, the plane continued to fill with water and eventually slipped beneath the waves.
In 1999 the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum located the remarkably preserved plane sitting on the bottom in deep water.
During the Cold War the old Ethan Allen Air Force Base at Burlington maintained an impressive Search and Rescue boat on the lake to rescue any USAF pilots who might go into the water.
The boat didn’t help 1st Lt. Edgar M. Powell in the winter of 1952 when he was doing extreme acrobatics off Plattsburgh.
Powell managed to break one wing off the fighter when he exceeded the plane’s capabilities.
With great difficulty he managed to bail out and survive with very minor injuries.
The F-51D (post war designation of the P-51 Mustang) crashed through the ice leaving the surface scattered with many pieces of debris.
Included in the items on the ice were live rounds of .50 caliber machine gun ammunition.
Schoolchildren ran out onto the ice and many ran away with live rounds. Most of the plane was later recovered.
The lake can be very unforgiving. In summer of 1952 several people cautioned Lloyd E. Crockett against his plan to take off in his SeaBee during rough seas and threatening thunderstorm.
Crockett made the takeoff attempt anyways but stalled, hit the water, and flipped over. He did not survive.
The summer of 1957 saw two spectacular crashes in rapid succession. A U.S. Navy P2V took off from Plattsburgh around 3 p.m. en route to Anacostia, Virginia.
Within minutes and while over the lake they lost fuel pressure in both engines causing them to quit.
The pilot, Lt. (jg) Richard Schwaller skillfully ditched the plane with its nine passengers and crew off Shoreham.
The large plane flipped over as the tail snapped off.
Everyone survived with only minor bruises. Some passengers and crew later claimed they were rescued so quickly they never got their feet wet.
Three weeks later it was a different story when the largest plane to ever crash into the lake went down off Plattsburgh.
A massive U.S.A.F. KC-97 aerial tanker took off with a crew of eight on a training mission. During the climb out they lost power in two of the four engines.
Five managed to bail out and the others rode the plane down and into the water. Having survived the crash, four of the crew died while floating on the surface due to suffocation because they were surrounded by massive amounts of fuel fumes which replaced the oxygen.
The crashes don’t all involve water. A number of incidents involve planes attempting to land on the ice during winter.
One such example was in February of 1975 when a pilot and his two passengers flew to the area of Thompson’s Point from their home in Connecticut.
They had planned on some ice fishing then a leisurely flight home later in the day.
They had to abort their first attempt to land but on the second approach one wheel punched thorough the ice.
Very quickly the hole opened to engulf the entire plane which then sank in about 60 feet of water.
The fisherman were able to scramble onto firmer ice and walk to safety on shore about 100 feet away.
In the summer of 1978 Richard Webber and his passenger attempted a landing on a short runway on Savage Island.
Unfortunately, they overshot the runway and plunged into the water.
They were able to get out of the plane in time to see it sink in 30’ of water.
It was an eerie sight as the plane slid under the waves with its lights still turned on.
It was raised three days later.
In February of 1993 John Derubies in his American General AG5B took off from Glens Falls en route to Lake Placid in marginal weather.
Derubies was not instrument rated and soon found himself lost in bad weather.
He radioed that he was over mountainous terrain near Burlington and would be returning to Glens Falls.
The next day the shattered wreckage with his remains was found on the ice off West Addison.
He had failed to maintain altitude and was probably badly disoriented when he hit the ice at high speed.
Three years earlier in a heavy snowstorm Malcolm French and two passengers were attempting to land at Burlington when their Cessna 310R vanished from radar off Colchester Point.
Five months later the wreckage was finally found.
The wreckage was raised to the surface to allow the recovery of the bodies after which the plane was allowed to sink back to the bottom.
The most recent crash was on April 11 of this year when a CE-172 piloted by Nick Santo was practicing landings on the ice off Milton.
After a successful landing they were unable to take off due to the deteriorating ice. They had to abandon the plane and walk to shore.
No — Lake Champlain is not a cousin of the Bermuda Triangle when it comes to airplanes.
All known crashes have full and logical explanations with one exception.
Where is N400CP and what happened to it during that dark night of 1971?
The searches will continue so that the surviving family members can finally have some closure.
Brian Lindner is a local aviation historian living in Waterbury. He began to research and document the crashes into Lake Champlain many years ago.
Story and photo gallery: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com
NTSB Identification: NYC71AN085
14 CFR Part 91 General Aviation
Aircraft: AERO COMDR 1121A, registration: N400CP
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FILE DATE LOCATION AIRCRAFT DATA INJURIES FLIGHT PILOT DATA
F S M/N PURPOSE
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3-0033 71/1/27 MISSING AIRCRAFT AERO COMDR 1121A CR- 2 0 0 NONCOMMERCIAL AIRLINE TRANSPORT, AGE
TIME - 1955 N400CP PX- 3 0 0 CORP/EXEC 41, 9908 TOTAL HOURS, 692
DAMAGE-DESTROYED OT- 0 0 0 IN TYPE, INSTRUMENT
RATED.
DEPARTURE POINT INTENDED DESTINATION
BURLINGTON,VT PROVIDENCE,RI
TYPE OF ACCIDENT PHASE OF OPERATION
MISSING AIRCRAFT,NOT RECOVERED UNKNOWN/NOT REPORTED
PROBABLE CAUSE(S)
MISCELLANEOUS - UNDETERMINED
REMARKS- ACFT DMG AND INJURY INDEX PRESUMED. BELIEVED TO BE IN LAKE CHAMPLAIN,NY.
Full narrative is not available.
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