Plane Explodes, Burns in Tangle of Orange Trees: Attempt at Forced Landing Fails; Two Men Badly Injured By Don McCullough Two men were killed when a B-25 bomber-transport from Norton Air Force base crashed and burned at 10 a.m. yesterday in an orange grove in Rialto. Two other Air Force men seriously injured in the crash were reported in fair condition at Norton base hospital last night. The converted twin-engine Mitchell was on a routine test flight from Norton when it developed motor trouble over Colton, five miles from the scene of the crash. It had just taken off from the base. Moments later it crashed cutting a 100-yard swath through the orange grove and smashing through at least 30 trees. Norton base public relations office identified the dead men as T. Sgt. James C. Clark,32 1315 F. Street, San Bernardino, and Major Paul B. Balfour 41, 801 West Fern Avenue, Redlands.

MICROPHONE IN HAND

Sergeant Clark was found dead in the wreckage the plane microphone in his hand. Major Balfour died three hours later at Norton base hospital. The injured men were identified as Lt. Col. Lawrence D. Pudney, 43, North Hollywood and Pfc. Bruce H. Butler, Northville, Michigan. All four men were attached to the 1002nd inspector general's unit at Norton. Witnesses said the pilot apparently attempted to make a belly landing at nearby Morrow airport a small private field but couldn't not line up his ship with the runway. The bomber swept beyond the airport dropping slowly in a tail-low attitude as if to make a crash landing on U.S. highway 66, but was confronted by a tall line of windbreak eucalyptus trees and banked to the right.

WING HITS TREES

In the turn over the orange grove of Mayor R. N. Buckwaler of Rialto, the Mitchell's low right wing slashed into the trees and cart wheeled the B-25 into a smashing. Impact followed almost instantly by an explosion and fire. Sgt. Clark was trapped in the wreckage and died in the fire. Major Balfour was thrown clear still trapped in his seat, and died later. Lt. Col. Pudney and Butler also were thrown some 40 feet on impact. A Bloomington motorist, Joseph Sargent, who arrived at the scene shortly after the crash, said Butler was thrown into an orange tree and was hanging from a limb. Among the first to reach the scene were Russell Z. Smith, general manager of the National Orange Show; Fred B. Mack and Bill Myzelle, who had just landed in Morrow airport after a flight from Phoniex, Arizona.

PROP FEATHERED

The B-25 was nose high with one engine idling and the prop apparently feathered." Smith said. "I thought the pilot was going to attempt a belly landing but the ship was 20 degrees off the runway approach and went on to disappear behind the trees.
Early reports that the twin tail of the Mitchell had broken off in flight were discounted by airmen- including Smith , a former Air Force major- who said all sections of the tail assembly apparently were in the wreckage.
Fire equipment from Rialto and San Bernardino was rushed to the scene. It was an hour and a half before Clark's body could be removed from the burning plane.
Wreckage was strewn over a wide area. Parts of the plane were lying against tree trunks and one engine was severed from a wing.
Colton Fire Chief G. C. Carter saw the disabled plane as it flew over Colton a few minutes before the crash. He said the craft was flying low and its engines seemed to be cutting out. Moments after the plane went out of sight, smoke started pouring up from the direction of Rialto, he said.
SUVIVORS LISTED
Chief Carter immediately called Colton police and summoned ambulances. The scene of the crash, midway between Lilac and Cactus avenues near Rialto's western city limits, is not near any homes.
Major Balfour leaves a widow, Lois Theresa, and two children, Richard 12, and Sharon, 9, all of Redlands.
Sergeant Clark leaves his widow ,Bonnie, and two sons', James, and Ronald, 3. The bodies of the two men were taken to the Mark B. Shaw memorial chapel, San Bernardino.
In November 1951, a B-25 bomber crashed into a Rialto orange grove along Bloomington Avenue, killing two of its four-man crew. I saw the enormous plume of black smoke from a distance and then later viewed the wreckage up close, but my childhood memories of the crash always remained extremely vivid and I had always wanted to know more about the accident. About a year ago, I discovered two eyewitnesses who had actually seen the plane crash.
Sonny Travis, our long-time grove man, whose recent death was a great loss to us and many other remaining growers, told me of seeing the crash while disking a grove not far south of the grove where the plane crashed. He said the plane's engines were sputtering as it struggled to maintain altitude. It cleared a line of towering eucalyptus windbreak trees by a few feet, and then, with the pilot apparently aware that he would never make it over the next windbreak, the plane swooped down and went smashing through the orange trees.
I discovered another witness who had been standing beside the grove where the plane crashed. This was Ethel Kucera, who has run the Rialto Child Assistance program for so many years that a middle school has been named in her honor. Ethel was working in the home drapery shop of Eleanor Nickles, who lived on the corner of Lilac and Bloomington Avenue. While Ethel was standing outside the house, she heard the sputtering plane pass overhead and then saw it crash into the grove and plow through the trees. The plane didn't burst into flame immediately after the crash, and Ethel frantically ran toward the wreckage.
She saw one of the crewmen, still strapped in his aircraft seat, sitting in the middle of Bloomington Avenue. He had been thrown clear of the wreckage, but one of his eyes was popped clear out of its socket. A school bus had been driving along Bloomington Avenue and it stopped very near the injured crewman, while the children gaped in open-mouthed astonishment. Ethel approached the man, and he started talking to her. She was greatly relieved, thinking that he would survive. She said that Bloomington Avenue normally had light traffic at that time, but suddenly a lot of people started showing up. While Ethel tried to console the shaken man in the aircraft seat, she said that other people walked around him as though they were in an amusement park, saying things like, "Look, he's still alive!"
Ethel told me that another crewman was dangling high in an orange tree. He too had been thrown clear of the wreckage. She said that he was too high for anyone to reach from the ground, and he was suspended in the branches for quite a while until he fell to the ground.
Ethel heard screams coming from the fuselage of the plane. There was a man desperately calling for help to be freed from the plane before it burst into flame. Ethel started to run to the plane to help him when a man tackled her. He told her, "Stay away, that plane will go up in flames at any moment." Ethel said that the plane suddenly burst into a terrible raging blaze, and the man's screams continued for some time in the fire before he became silent. She said she could smell him burning.
When I had earlier found the November 1951 Rialto Record newspaper article about the crash, the story simply told of two crew members surviving and two dying. I hadn't realized the real horror of the deaths until I heard Ethel's story, and I felt very bad for these men and their families even though this incident took place over 50 years before.
Who were the men in the bomber? The Rialto Fire Department has photos of two of them lying beside the eucalyptus trees along Bloomington Avenue. The man who died in the fire was S/Sgt James C. Clark of San Bernardino. The Rialto Record story said that he still had the plane's microphone clutched in his hand when they recovered his body. Major Paul B. Balfour, of Redlands, was the man who was thrown clear in his aircraft seat. He died later at the Norton base hospital. For over 50 years, Ethel had assumed he survived, because he was talking to her after the crash, and she burst into tears when she learned that he had died later that day. Lt. Colonel Lawrence D. Pudney of North Hollywood and Pfc. Bruce H. Butler of Northville, Michigan survived. I would like to contact those men and talk to them, but I doubt if I could ever find them, even if they are still alive. The two badly injured survivors must have required a long time to recover. I have told of their ordeal to salute the memory of four brave men.