The 6 lost Hurricane Hunter missions, Part III: Typhoon Doris, 1953
The tropics are quiet right now, as the "invest 93" disturbance over the Yucatan Peninsula has dissipated, and no computer models are showing any Atlantic tropical storm formation over the next seven days. Thus, it's a good time to continue with my series on the six typhoon/hurricane hunter missions that never returned.
The third typhoon hunter mission lost occurred on December 16, 1953, during a penetration by a Navy PB4Y-2S (Bu No 59176) into Typhoon Doris. The aircraft was part of a six plane squadron, VJ-1/VW-3, COMFAIRGUAM, based at the Naval Air Station in Agana, Guam (VJ-1 was formed in 1952 at NAS Sand Point, Seattle, Washington, and the name later changed to VW-3). The PB4Y-2S aircraft made its initial penetration into Doris' eye at 200 - 300 feet. As the aircraft radioed back a report at 2245Z, the transmission suddenly ceased. The plane was never heard from again. At the time, Doris was a Category 2 typhoon with sustained winds of 95 knots (110 mph). Again, given the low penetration altitude of the aircraft, it is likely that a downdraft carried the plane into the sea. It's pretty common to get downdrafts that will cause a 300 foot loss of altitude, despite the attempts of the pilot to climb with full power to the engines.
A nine-day long search and rescue operation failed to find any trace of the missing aircraft. Tragically, two aircraft involved in the search and rescue mission crashed, killing 39 more people. The first of these planes was a R4D (DC 3) that crashed into the crater of Agrihan Island, Mariannas, killing all ten crew members. This aircraft was not from the NAS Agana, Guam group. In addition, a B-29 based at Anderson AFB had an engine fail while looking for the missing typhoon hunter aircraft, and crashed during landing into an officer's housing area on Guam. A total of 29 people died in the crash, including at least 11 of the 16 crew members on the aircraft.
The nine crewmen lost during the flight into Typhoon Doris were:
Pilot J. W. Newhall age 39
Co-pilot S. B. Marsden, age 29
Lt. Cmdr. D. Zimmerman Jr., age 35
Ltjg. F. Troescher Jr., age 26
AL1 F. R. Barnett, age 26
AD1 J. N. Clark, age 32
AD3 E. L. Myer, age 20
AL2 N. J. Stephens, age 23
AO3 A. J. Stott, age 23
I got in contact with Austen Doolittle, who was operating the radio set in Guam when the transmission inside Typhoon Doris from the plane's radio operator, Norm Stephens, suddenly stopped. Austen recalled:
Jeff, I appreciate receiving your email, Earl Beech and I were at our second reunion in 55 years the 4th to 8th of May at Pensacola FL. Had a great time. Its important to the members of the VJ1/VW3 to make people aware of what we were doing so many years ago as 19 and 20 year old young sailors. I lost three of my best navy friends in that accident, and to this day I still wonder about the happenstance of my being on base radio that day and receiving the POMAR reports from Norm Stephens. There was an ability to recognize the hand or keying of people you knew, and I know that Norm Stephens was keying that last message to me. When he cut off I knew something had happened, and it really shook me up, and I tried to raise the plane many times until I knew it was not possible. I still have many pictures of Norm, Don Stott and Jim Clark in my album. Thanks for what you are doing, I really appreciate it. I've had a long and fruitful life since then, but I'll never forget that day, and still wonder why I was so lucky.
Austen
Figure 1. Painting of a Navy PB4Y-2S "Privateer" aircraft flown by the VJ-1/VW3 Squadron. Image credit: USS Whitehurst DE-634 web site. Several stories by members of the VJ-1/VW3 Squadron concerning the Typhoon Doris disaster are posted on the web site.
Other sources: http://www.vpnavy.com/vj1_notice.html
Past posts in this series:
October 1, 1945 typhoon
Typhoon Wilma, 1952
I'm back from vacation now, and my next blog post will be Wednesday, when I'll present the July Atlantic hurricane outlook.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 — Blog Index
????
He did the right thing really. I shouldn't have even said that one sentence about FF. The rules state that we should keep to the topic of the blog or tropical weather.
No there not
Web Page Blocked by Company A.
We've blocked this web page for daughter because it contains potentially inappropriate content. If you think we've made a mistake, you can ask a parent to allow the web page.
Parents, to allow this web page, please follow these instructions:
1. Log in to your account on this PC, and open SecurityCenter.
2. On the SecurityCenter Home pane, click Parental Controls.
3. In the Parental Controls information section, click Configure.
4. On the Parental Controls Configuration pane, click Advanced.
5. On the Parental Controls pane, click Filtered Web Sites.
6. Type the web page's address in the http:// field, and click Allow.
Remember 2004
http://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/stndon/wf-fo/index-eng.php?day=1&filter=autoscaled&month=07&st ation=first&tpl_region=swbc&type=network&year=2009&hour=9#SECTION_1
Since it was off shore there should not be too much damage unless it generates a tsunammi. there was an aftershock as well and this thing may not be quite over yet.
First Day of July
Day 31.
152 to go and it's over.
Just got a tornado warning over the radio...
Don't be fooled by the satellite. The conditions in front of this wave are very unfavorable.
I took a look at the CFS model forecast for the next few months off of the AccuWeather Pro site and found a couple of interesting things.
July: The UL low looks to lift NE this month into eastern Canada which may allow some warmth into the NE US. Lots of hvy precip off of coast of Africa, but then tapers off the further west you go, which likely means any TWs will "peter out" the further west you go. Lack of precip over much of Caribbean likely due to Columbian low pressure system.
August & September: Found the precip strip up off of the US East Coast interesting, may be a clue to tropical systems paralleling the US East Coast as they track N and NE. Also, there is an area of heavier precip over the NE Gulf of Mexico that is kind of curious. Wondering if this means something? The setup is pretty much the same for both August and September.
October: Area of heavier precip near North Carolina coast and near Cuba.
Looks like Caribbean stays dry for much of the summer and also interestingly the western Gulf of Mexico until September and October.
Thoughts are more than welcome!!
-Rob @ Crown Weather Services
Summary: El Niño event likely
Link
Pulse storms are quickly forming storms that get strong then they die quickly.
Thanks! I'd never heard of them before.
This may help also.
A COMPREHENSIVE GLOSSARY OF
WEATHER TERMS FOR STORM SPOTTERS
Ya, looks like a rough morning
000
NWUS52 KTBW 011246
LSRTBW
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAMPA BAY AREA - RUSKIN FL
845 AM EDT WED JUL 01 2009
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
0815 AM LIGHTNING 6 SW CLEARWATER 27.89N 82.82W
07/01/2009 PINELLAS FL EMERGENCY MNGR
*** 1 INJ *** INDIVIDUAL WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING WHILE
INSIDE A MEDAL SHED NEAR LARGO. TRANSPORTED TO HOSPITAL
WITH AN INJURY TO HIS HAND.
000
NWUS52 KTBW 011238
LSRTBW
PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAMPA BAY AREA - RUSKIN FL
838 AM EDT WED JUL 01 2009
..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..
0730 AM FLOOD 3 S HUDSON 28.32N 82.69W
07/01/2009 PASCO FL EMERGENCY MNGR
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT IN PASCO CO. REPORTS FLOODING NEAR
ZIMMERMAN AND RANCH RD SOUTH OF HUDSON. EVACUATING 10
BLOCK AREA.
Yeah I drove in a couple of feet of water this morning.
hmmm this wind shear map dos not look very unfavorable too me in fac wind shear is vary favorable this about any where there may be a few pake it of 20 to 40kt of wind shear here and there but any way this about evere has favorable wind shear
Link
i am in lakeland and it seems like when the bad stuff hits polk it hits a wall. tornados in brandon this morning headed my way and its barely sprinkling. i guess we have a force field!!
Viewing: 1151 - 1190
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 — Blog Index