(56-6714 art.#381)
Lost on 31 January 1980 near Oroville, CA. USAF Pilot: Edward I. Beaumont lost consciousness while on a training flight the aircraft. The aircraft glided earthward, followed by a chase aircraft, till it hit some high tension electrical lines causing the U-2 to slowly spiral to the ground. Where having regained consciousness by the sudden jolt of hitting the ground, the pilot exited the U-2.
The U-2 is now mounted on pylon at Beale AFB, CA.
U-2 Spyplane Memorial
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By kjfitz @ 2007-05-23 12:55:37
Anonymous
@ 2009-02-18 20:03:58
I eyewitnessed from the air while taking off of 16L at VNY Gary Francis Powers crashing to his death one of the KTLA 5 news choppers. His was the black one with the white '5' (rightfully so) and the surviving chopper was the white one with the black 5. He was descending from the south over the Santa Monica mountains and crashed into the Sepulveda Basin on the golf course side just west of the fence line. I believe he was attempting an 'autorotation' emergency landing because I saw the rotor RPM drop to almost zero too high and then he crashed in. One of the rotor blades stuck in the ground and I saw the fuselage whip around thrashing the occupants to death if they weren't already dead from spinal compression. THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKE OR FIRE! My guess is that he ran out of gas but the NTSB report said some kind of mechanical failure. I never reported what I saw because I didn't want to jeapordize his family from collecting any insurance by weasling out due to possible pilot negligence after all they had been through previously.