A Question About Plane Crash Resurrects Hamilton History

When she heard a loud noise outside early one morning, Novato teenager Patti Mazzoleni figured it was just another sonic boom from a plane at Hamilton Air Force Base. Except this time it sounded different.

It was May 1970, and she remembers that a plane crashed not too far from her grandfather’s home off Bugeia Lane where she was cooking breakfast that morning. But the military cordoned off the crash site near the Novato Horseman’s Club and Mazzoleni never heard the details of what happened.

Today, that young girl is Patti Titman, and she's still living in Novato. She asked Novato Patch to look into mystery crash, and we found some details to share.

First, more of Titman’s account:

“It was a very foggy morning and it turned out that a jet had just taken off from Hamilton, had a flameout or was flying too low because of the fog, and slammed into the hillside. The hill was torn up from the jet plowing up the hillside and the pilot was killed.  

“My grandfather's field was not built upon and a military helicopter landed there with top brass not long after the crash. Immediately a perimeter was set up with military men and no one, not even my brother and his nosy friends, was allowed on the hill until an investigation and clean up was done. 

“Many days went by until people were allowed to take a look at the site. By that time it had been bulldozed and cleaned up so much it resembled a dirt football field, devoid of trees or grass.” 

According to records, the crash that most closely aligns with that time period was one involving a propeller-driven transport plane, not a jet. In early May 1970, a flight destined for an airbase near Spokane, Wash., crashed shortly after takeoff from Hamilton. There was only one survivor; 12 Air Force servicemen and an Army specialist were lost.

It was later determined that the aircraft’s windshield may have been a major contributing factor in the crash. The CV-240 was made by Convair, a subsidiary of General Dynamics. Seven years later, the same model of plane carrying the famed rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd would crash in a swampy forest near Gillsburg, Miss., killing six.

Titman's husband, Sgt. Earl Titman of the Novato Police Department, lived on the west side of town and heard the same sound that day. He was 15 at the time.

"It shook the whole town, so we had a pretty good idea of what had happened," he said. "Obviously news traveled quickly as small as Novato was back then. We had nothing to lose, so we went over and checked it out."

Titman hopped on the back of his buddy's motorcycle and road out to Bugeia Lane. They came across some military guards at the perimeter of the crash site and started talking to them.

"We were able to schmooze them," he said. "We asked if we could go check it out, and they said we could as long as we didn't touch anything. So we go in there and we were blown away. It was right after the bodies had been recovered. The cockpit was torn apart and there were wires everywhere. There were little blue flags planted all over the place, so we asked the guys what those were for. They said it was where body parts had been found."

That 1970 crash did not involve a jet, but there was a jet crash in 1964 at Hamilton. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds were finishing a practice run the day before an air show, and one of the F-105 Thunderchiefs broke in half over the runway. The pilot, Captain Gene Devlin, was killed.  

The accident investigation determined that a joint, meant to strengthen the fuselage, had been defective and failed. Investigators learned that the same aircraft was previously involved in a bump during a mid-air fueling attempt in which the frame of the aircraft had suffered damage and was then repaired. 

The F-105 Thunderchief, commonly referred to as the Thud, was also four tons heavier than its predecessor the F-100 Super Sabre and was considered not as maneuverable. It was impressively powerful, however, as the planes’ engines generated some 6,000 pounds of additional thrust.

As it turned out, the Thunderbirds returned to using the F-100 after completing just six public shows in the F-105. The Super Sabre would be used for another four years in such performances before the group switched over to the F-4 Phantom. 

Perhaps more of a mystery than these two incidents is a case that goes way back to 1947. This one didn’t involve a crash at the base but rather an aircraft that never returned to Hamilton. 

Among UFO buffs, it is referred to as the Maury Island incident. It had to do with two intelligence officers who were sent from Hamilton to Tacoma, Wash., to investigate a UFO sighting. The officers were returning to Hamilton with physical evidence when one of the B-25’s engines caught fire and they lost a wing. The officers did not survive but two others parachuted to safety. 

MORE INFORMATION

An Associated Press account of the May 1970 crash in Novato

The 1964 crash of the Thunderbirds F-105

You Ain't a Thud Pilot Until You Go Downtown