History Comes Knocking, Pt.1: Fated Flight Of The F-5E

The early morning of July 2, 1945 was going to be a clear and warm day for pilot 2nd Lt. Charles R. Schleifer. What started out as a possible reconnaissance survey flight would end fatally two miles west of the town of Barnsdall, Oklahoma as his Lockheed F-5E  would crash into a hillside. The official crash report from the Army Air Corps stated the probable causes for the crash were unknown but after reading the eye witness reports from C. Art Jones and Clinton E. Daniel, and doing research and investigating performance reports on the F-5E, I came to my own conclusion of how the crash occurred. Though my opinion is only my interpretation of the event, I believe it's what happened on that day.

2nd LT. Charles R. Schleifer
Photo from the Clint Daniel site

Lockheed F-5E  Photo Recon Aircraft

While on a flight from the Coffeyville Army Air Corps Field in Coffeyville Kansas, 2nd Lt. Charles Schleifer and an unknown pilot flying another aircraft of the same description  were flying in tandem at an extremely high altitude. Lt. Schleifer was flying in the trailing plane. At 0810, on July 2, 1945,  it's possible Lt. Schleifer wanted a closer look at something below or wanted to test the dive flaps on the aircraft which were a modification on the plane. As eye witness reports state, he pulled out of position, rolled and placed his aircraft into a dive. The plane was diving at a high rate of speed and appeared to spiral as it came down. The witnesses recalled the plane was making a loud screaming sound such as it might be at full throttle. Near the altitude of 1000 ft. the aircraft was trying to pull out of the dive into an inverted attitude. For a few moments the aircraft leveled into an inverted attitude before disappearing out of sight and crashing into a hillside near the C. Art Jones farm. 

Official photo from the Army Air Corps on the F-5E crash
Photo from the Clint Daniel site

After researching the performance characteristics of the F-5E and checking into the modifications of the plane, I concluded  that the aircraft surpassed it's airspeed limits and could not recover from the dive. According to the performance tests, the planes tail section would buffet if passing airspeed limits and cause structural damage. The performance tests included controllability handling  and diving characteristics, which state that at extremely high dive speeds the airplane tends to become rapidly nose heavy and elevator effectiveness decreases, making it difficult to pull out of a dive. Elevators are the flaps on the tail wings that give the plane directional control up and down. According to the crash report the plane was in a 60 degree  horizontal and inverted attitude when it crashed. This leads me to believe in two different scenarios, either the pilot mistakenly pulled back on the yoke while he was inverted to pull out of the dive which would turn him straight into the ground or the pilot lost stability control and lift while being inverted and was unable to roll out of the inversion.

Reports say that after the crash, people from Barnsdall made their way to the crash site, where it was said that the plane disintegrated upon impact and was on fire. During this time curious onlookers were picking up pieces of the crashed plane.  The body of Lt. Schleifer was recovered and sent to Tulsa. That night the local Boy Scout troop stood watch over the wreckage until an Army Air Corps recovery team could be on scene the next morning. 

Clint Daniel, son of Clinton E. Daniel, (witness to the crash), was given a piece of the crashed F-5E over 15 years ago by his dad. Clint Daniel wrote the story "A Mystery Solved 1945-2006"on the crashed F-5E on his web site. This might seem like the end of the story but it isn't. Another piece of the fated flight of the F-5E has surfaced with it's own story which will be told in the later part of this flight into history.