Lev McIntosh, 51, airport manager, helped to save Don M. Perkins, 35, airplane pilot, U. S. Marine Corps, from burning, Imperial, California, December 8, 1954. A jet-propelled airplane Perkins was flying developed engine trouble and crashed upright on the main runway of a civilian airport. The impact crumpled the bottom of the fuselage, and fuel began to drain from the ruptured tanks. Perkins, who was secured to his seat by a safety-belt and shoulder-harness, was rendered unconscious. In the cockpit was an emergency device which was capable of catapulting the seat and pilot upward. As McIntosh alighted from an automobile and ran to the airplane, flames one to four feet high broke out on the wing sections next to the fuselage. Four other men arrived, three of them carrying fire extinguishers. McIntosh, who knew of the seat-ejection device, climbed onto the nose of the craft, reached into the cockpit, and unfastened Perkins’s safety-belt and harness while the others directed the contents of the extinguishers onto the wing sections, temporarily smothering the flames. Lifting Perkins from the seat, McIntosh drew him partly over the side of the cockpit. Perkins was lowered to the ground and carried to safety. Within two minutes after McIntosh jumped from the nose and ran clear of the airplane with the others, the craft erupted in flames 15 feet high. Perkins, who was revived, was not injured. 43386-3989
43386 – 3989
43386-3989