thedrifter
05-21-09, 07:09 AM
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Remnants of a Blue Angels crash pop up 50 years later
MORNING READ: Message from beyond? A Newport Beach family wonders.
By TOM BERG
The Orange County Register
Comments 0 | Recommend 1
NEWPORT BEACH It's just a small wooden box from Wal-Mart filled with sand and a few artifacts. Nothing much, it seems.
Until you hear of its extraordinary journey; how it found its way to Patrick Glasgow, and what it means to him.
"Is it my Dad saying, 'Hey, I'm still here and I'm looking out for you'?" Glasgow asks, holding the box tenderly.
Or is it more? Much more?
Glasgow, 63, of Newport Beach, last said goodbye to his dad Oct. 14, 1958, before leaving for school.
A few hours later, Navy pilot Robert Nicholls Glasgow, 36, climbed into the cockpit of an F-11 Tiger for his first flight as commander of the Blue Angels. Some 30 miles west of Naval Air Station Pensacola, in Florida, he practiced a loop, the story goes, and didn't pull out in time.
For half a century, that was the end of it.
Then, last October, things started turning up on the beach that defied logic. And people started meeting up against impossible odds.
Some call it coincidence; some, divine intervention. Whatever, last month it led a stranger to drive 2,000 miles to meet Glasgow. She gave him a small box of sand.
And, now, hope.
DAILY WALK
Debbie Harris says she didn't "decide" to drive to California with what she found. She felt compelled.
"It's either him or his angels causing this to happen," Harris says of the downed pilot. "But it's not a human thing. It's more. I'm just a conduit."
Harris was 5 when Glasgow crashed near her family's beach cottage, located in what is now the Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge, on the border of Florida and Alabama.
"(The crash) was always part of the family folklore – the stories Daddy would tell, and now we tell."
As a child, playing on the beach, Harris found a handful of jet fragments, but nothing personal.
Then, last fall, during her daily walk, a glint of something reflected in the sand caught her eye. It was a small metal emblem bearing Glasgow's: "Fighter Squadron 191."
It surfaced 50 years – almost to the day – of his crash.
"I thought, 'that's weird,'" say Harris, who wasn't looking for anything.
"But I didn't know what was coming next."
Harris tucked the emblem in an envelope and forgot about it. Until Feb. 17th.
For two days, a winter storm had interrupted her daily beach walk. But late that afternoon the winds shifted, causing a lull. Harris stepped outside.
"If there hadn't been a lull, I wouldn't have gone for a walk," she says. "If we didn't have a storm, (the wind) wouldn't have uncovered it.
"And if I had been looking up instead of down, I would've stepped over it."
But, of course, there was a storm. There was a lull. And she did happen to look down.
And there, in her path, lay the crumpled military dog tag of Robert N. Glasgow.
"I held it in my hand as the sun was setting," Harris says. "And I realized I was the first person to hold it since it was around his neck. I just got the chills."
She'd get them again later, when she learned Feb. 17 was the dead pilot's birthday.
NOT DONE YET
Harris immediately called her mother, her daughter, and her Aunt Maye, who offered to stop by the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola to inquire about the pilot.
At first, Maye got nowhere. The director and both curators were gone. And the museum's librarian could find nothing on Cmdr. Glasgow.
But, while leaving, Maye bumped into the museum director getting in his car. She recounted her story.
"You won't believe this," the director said, "but I was with him the day of the accident."
Bob Rasmussen, 79, was not only a Blue Angels pilot; he'd led Cmdr. Glasgow on an orientation flight that morning. They flew in separate planes. Rasmussen elevated to check some new electronic gear, and when he returned, smoke was curling up from the beach.
"Of all the people in the world she might've contacted," Rasmussen says, "I'm the only one who had a personal knowledge of (the crash)."
Rasmussen invited Harris in to tell her story to the press. Within 24 hours, they had the name and phone number of the pilot's son in Newport Beach.
Harris invited the Glasgows to her place, but the cross-country flight proved too difficult for widow Mickie Sue Glasgow, 87, of Corona del Mar.
So Harris, along with her mother and brother, drove here.
The ceremony was small: close friends and relatives in the backyard of Patrick Glasgow, who grew up to fly F-4 Phantoms in the Marines and now is retired from the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
It was almost as if his father had returned after 50 years.
"Logically, it's just two pieces of metal in sand," Glasgow said later. "But I like to think this is my dad saying, 'I'm still watching out for you.' "
Yet if Cmdr. Glasgow was trying to speak, he wasn't done. Not yet.
TWO PIECES OF METAL
A few weeks later, Harris' Aunt Maye was making small talk with a gardener clearing her yard. When he was 8, the gardener said, his family was net-fishing off a deserted beach – and saw a jet crash.
His next words changed everything. Randy Powell saw the jet explode in mid-air – indicating mechanical error.
For 50 years, Patrick Glasgow had lived without a dad. And without an explanation for why his dad tried a maneuver on his orientation flight – and failed. It hurt.
"I always wondered 'What did my dad do wrong'?" he says.
Now he had the answer. All it took was a squadron emblem to appear on the 50th anniversary of the crash. And a dog tag to appear on his dad's birthday. And a crew mate to appear out of thin air. And an eyewitness to appear out of thinner air.
After all that, Patrick Glasgow had his answer: His dad did nothing wrong.
Logically, it's still two pieces of metal in a box of sand. Nothing much, it seems. Until you know how it got here and what it means.
"I take it as my dad saying, 'I'm still here looking out for you. And I want you to know the truth.'"
Contact the writer: 714-796-6979 ortberg@ocregister.com
Ellie
Remnants of a Blue Angels crash pop up 50 years later
MORNING READ: Message from beyond? A Newport Beach family wonders.
By TOM BERG
The Orange County Register
Comments 0 | Recommend 1
NEWPORT BEACH It's just a small wooden box from Wal-Mart filled with sand and a few artifacts. Nothing much, it seems.
Until you hear of its extraordinary journey; how it found its way to Patrick Glasgow, and what it means to him.
"Is it my Dad saying, 'Hey, I'm still here and I'm looking out for you'?" Glasgow asks, holding the box tenderly.
Or is it more? Much more?
Glasgow, 63, of Newport Beach, last said goodbye to his dad Oct. 14, 1958, before leaving for school.
A few hours later, Navy pilot Robert Nicholls Glasgow, 36, climbed into the cockpit of an F-11 Tiger for his first flight as commander of the Blue Angels. Some 30 miles west of Naval Air Station Pensacola, in Florida, he practiced a loop, the story goes, and didn't pull out in time.
For half a century, that was the end of it.
Then, last October, things started turning up on the beach that defied logic. And people started meeting up against impossible odds.
Some call it coincidence; some, divine intervention. Whatever, last month it led a stranger to drive 2,000 miles to meet Glasgow. She gave him a small box of sand.
And, now, hope.
DAILY WALK
Debbie Harris says she didn't "decide" to drive to California with what she found. She felt compelled.
"It's either him or his angels causing this to happen," Harris says of the downed pilot. "But it's not a human thing. It's more. I'm just a conduit."
Harris was 5 when Glasgow crashed near her family's beach cottage, located in what is now the Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge, on the border of Florida and Alabama.
"(The crash) was always part of the family folklore – the stories Daddy would tell, and now we tell."
As a child, playing on the beach, Harris found a handful of jet fragments, but nothing personal.
Then, last fall, during her daily walk, a glint of something reflected in the sand caught her eye. It was a small metal emblem bearing Glasgow's: "Fighter Squadron 191."
It surfaced 50 years – almost to the day – of his crash.
"I thought, 'that's weird,'" say Harris, who wasn't looking for anything.
"But I didn't know what was coming next."
Harris tucked the emblem in an envelope and forgot about it. Until Feb. 17th.
For two days, a winter storm had interrupted her daily beach walk. But late that afternoon the winds shifted, causing a lull. Harris stepped outside.
"If there hadn't been a lull, I wouldn't have gone for a walk," she says. "If we didn't have a storm, (the wind) wouldn't have uncovered it.
"And if I had been looking up instead of down, I would've stepped over it."
But, of course, there was a storm. There was a lull. And she did happen to look down.
And there, in her path, lay the crumpled military dog tag of Robert N. Glasgow.
"I held it in my hand as the sun was setting," Harris says. "And I realized I was the first person to hold it since it was around his neck. I just got the chills."
She'd get them again later, when she learned Feb. 17 was the dead pilot's birthday.
NOT DONE YET
Harris immediately called her mother, her daughter, and her Aunt Maye, who offered to stop by the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola to inquire about the pilot.
At first, Maye got nowhere. The director and both curators were gone. And the museum's librarian could find nothing on Cmdr. Glasgow.
But, while leaving, Maye bumped into the museum director getting in his car. She recounted her story.
"You won't believe this," the director said, "but I was with him the day of the accident."
Bob Rasmussen, 79, was not only a Blue Angels pilot; he'd led Cmdr. Glasgow on an orientation flight that morning. They flew in separate planes. Rasmussen elevated to check some new electronic gear, and when he returned, smoke was curling up from the beach.
"Of all the people in the world she might've contacted," Rasmussen says, "I'm the only one who had a personal knowledge of (the crash)."
Rasmussen invited Harris in to tell her story to the press. Within 24 hours, they had the name and phone number of the pilot's son in Newport Beach.
Harris invited the Glasgows to her place, but the cross-country flight proved too difficult for widow Mickie Sue Glasgow, 87, of Corona del Mar.
So Harris, along with her mother and brother, drove here.
The ceremony was small: close friends and relatives in the backyard of Patrick Glasgow, who grew up to fly F-4 Phantoms in the Marines and now is retired from the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
It was almost as if his father had returned after 50 years.
"Logically, it's just two pieces of metal in sand," Glasgow said later. "But I like to think this is my dad saying, 'I'm still watching out for you.' "
Yet if Cmdr. Glasgow was trying to speak, he wasn't done. Not yet.
TWO PIECES OF METAL
A few weeks later, Harris' Aunt Maye was making small talk with a gardener clearing her yard. When he was 8, the gardener said, his family was net-fishing off a deserted beach – and saw a jet crash.
His next words changed everything. Randy Powell saw the jet explode in mid-air – indicating mechanical error.
For 50 years, Patrick Glasgow had lived without a dad. And without an explanation for why his dad tried a maneuver on his orientation flight – and failed. It hurt.
"I always wondered 'What did my dad do wrong'?" he says.
Now he had the answer. All it took was a squadron emblem to appear on the 50th anniversary of the crash. And a dog tag to appear on his dad's birthday. And a crew mate to appear out of thin air. And an eyewitness to appear out of thinner air.
After all that, Patrick Glasgow had his answer: His dad did nothing wrong.
Logically, it's still two pieces of metal in a box of sand. Nothing much, it seems. Until you know how it got here and what it means.
"I take it as my dad saying, 'I'm still here looking out for you. And I want you to know the truth.'"
Contact the writer: 714-796-6979 ortberg@ocregister.com
Ellie