THE FLAGLER TRIBUNE
Bunnell, Florida
Thursday, September 21, 1944

 

Two navy planes from the Daytona Beach Naval Air Station collided over Bunnell Wednesday afternoon with the occupant of each plane losing his life when both planes crashed, one only a short distance from the business section and near the Texaco Oil Company's bulk station, while the other hit about a mile and a half east of town.

The planes collided at about 2000 feet, one with a wing severed spiraled almost straight down while the other burst into flames and flew east more than a mile before crashing.

The pilot of the plane that fell in Bunnell was 22.year-old Lt. Robert L. Settle of Norfolk, Va., who was still in the plane when the flames that enveloped it upon crashing were put out.

The other flyer was 25-year-old Lt. Robert Kingston of Los Angeles, Calif., who either fell or jumped from the plane before it crashed, his unused parachute falling, fully open, several miles away. Both planes were burned.

A crew and crash truck from the Bunnell Naval Air Field extinguished the flames on the planes and removed the bodies of the flyers.

Names and addresses of the dead pilots were furnished by Lt. Hood, public relations officer of the Daytona Beach Naval Air Station.

-30-

NOTE: At the time of this aircraft accident, the compiler was only 4 years old and was swinging in the porch swing at the home of his aunt and uncle (Clarence Otis Magee and Pauline Sisco - who at the time owned the old Major Frank Lambert house on the corner of Railroad Street {Dixie Highway} and Lambert Street)

I was looking west over the railroad tracks when the planes hit - one went south and one continued east. I remember my Uncle Otis (the Texaco Distributer for this area) getting up from his chair and then leaving from the house in his car.