This silent home movie of a Thunderbirds air show contains an incredible segment around 5:20, when an Air Force C-123 crashes and burns. The date of this tragic accident was September 24, 1961, the location the New Hanover County Airport. The two-engine C-123 was carrying members of the U.S. Army’s Golden Knights parachute team from Fort Bragg. Three crew members were killed including the co-pilot John E. Markel and flight engineer Sgt. John M. Lesko, and the unit photographer for the Golden Knights Spc. 5 Robert T. Turner. Twelve people were injured, two of whom later died. These included a member of the Wilmington WECT-TV staff named John Neil and a civilian, James S. Craig Jr. who is often credited with bringing the battleship USS North Carolina to Wilmington. According to witnesses and you can see it in the film, the death toll would have been much higher during the aftermath except for the alert thinking of a USAF H43-B Huskie helicopter crew, who used the rotor backwash of their helicopter to retard the fire. If you have any further information about the circumstances surrounding this accident, please contact us or leave a comment below.

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com