F-89C Scorpion,what`s the story on this old bird?

I stumbled across a UFO story in which a F-89 Scorpion was involved I`m wondering about the history of these old jets, were they known to have problems or to be unreliable?
The reason I`m asking is because all the facts seem to point to pilot error or in my opinion more likely a flaw or problem with all the Scorpion aircraft.


Here`s the background of the story.

On November 23, 1953, a US Air Force F-89C jet fighter interceptor was dispatched from Kinross Air Force Base near Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to identify an intruder that had appeared on radar. For thirty minutes, the jet raced out over Lake Superior under guidance from radar operators at a remote station on the Keweenaw Peninsula. Suddenly, the return from the jet merged with that of the bogie it was chasing. The IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) signal from the jet was lost. The radar blip from the F-89 never reappeared. An extensive search of the lake and shoreline over the next five days yielded no trace of the F-89 jet or its crew, pilot Lt. Felix Eugene Moncla Jr. and radar operator Lt. Robert L. Wilson.

www.ufobc.ca...

so far it sounds very UFOish but the rest of the story makes it pretty clear that there was nothing UFOish about it.
The UFO was most likely actually a Canadian C-47,here`s what the pilot of that C-47 says about that night:

I remember the flight reasonably well, and just checked my log books to confirm the date. It was a night flight. We were probably at 7,000 or 9,000 feet over a solid cloud deck below and absolutely clear sky above.

Somewhere near Sault Ste. Marie, and north of Kinross AFB, I think a ground station (can't remember whether it was American or Canadian) asked us if we had seen another aircraft's lights in our area. I do think I recall them saying at that time that the USAF had scrambled an interceptor and they had lost contact with it. We replied that we had not seen anything.

www.ufobc.ca...

The pilot and crew of the C-47 didn`t see a UFO, they didn`t see the F-89, They didn`t see anything.

Here`s some info on the crew and the Scorpion:

1st Lt. Felix Eugene Moncla Jr. was pilot of the F-89 which went missing over Lake Superior. He was a member of the 433rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron based at Truax Field in Madison, WI. At the time of his disappearance, he was on temporary assignment to Kinross Air Force Base while fighter jet and ground crews were doing gunnery training in Yuma, AZ.
2nd Lt. Robert L. Wilson was the radar operator in the F-89 which disappeared in the Kinross Incident. His hometown was Ponca City, Oklahoma.

www.ufobc.ca...

the crew was there on temporary duty, they weren`t familiar with flying in that area or in those particular weather conditions.The Scorpion originally ascended to 30,000 feet and when it neared the point where the "unidentified object" was on radar the descended to 7,000 feet.


now we get to the plane which is the purpose of this thread, on the same day that all of this happened another F-89 from the same base crashed into a marsh near Madison Wisconsin.

1st Lt. John W. Schmidt was the pilot of the F-89 which crashed into a marsh at the edge of Lake Wingra, in Madison, Wisconsin, on the same day the F-89 disappeared over Lake Superior.

www.ufobc.ca...

I`m assuming that the weather conditions were similar at the time of both crashes on that day and I`m wondering if the F-89 had a history of crashing or performance problems in cold snowy weather.

a reply to: Tardacus

...I`m wondering if the F-89 had a history of crashing or performance problems in cold snowy weather.

Kinda doubt it, the F89 was an 'all weather' interceptor.

link

a reply to: Tardacus

The F-89 had a history of engine and structural problems. They tried a couple of different engines and had problems with all of them. I think they finally fixed the engine issues with the D model.

The entire fleet was grounded when they found structural problems with the wings that required pretty significant work to fix.

The first prototype Scorpion took to the air in August 1948. Many shortcomings soon became evident. On February 22, 1950, an early prototype was lost during a demonstration flight when its horizontal stabilizer tore away.

Problems also surfaced with the engines, which produced less power than predicted, and with the complex radar system being developed by Hughes Aircraft. At several points during 1949 and 1950 the Air Force came close to canceling the F-89 due to its seemingly intractable problems, but by 1951, with the introduction of the F-89C, the first fully operational version of the plane, it seemed that the Scorpion was on the way to becoming a major addition to the Air Force's arsenal.

The F-89C made its first flight in September, 1951, and the first operational F-89C squadron was the 176th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Truax AFB, Madison, Wisconsin, which received its first Scorpion on February 8, 1952.

* On February 25, an F-89C shed a wing and disintegrated in flight. After investigators determined that the aircraft had broken up due to overstressing by the pilot, speed and g-load limits were imposed.
* On June 18, just three days after the F-89C became operational with the 74th FIS at Presque Isle AFB, Maine, the wing of one of the squadron's new Scorpions cracked and folded in flight, killing the pilot and radar observer.

* On August 30, two F-89Cs of the 27th FIS were flying in an aerial display at the International Aviation Exhibition near Detroit. During a high-speed pass over the field, the left wing of one aircraft snapped off at the root. The fighter spun to destruction, killing both crewmen and spewing debris into the crowd, injuring five spectators.

* Despite even stricter speed and g-limits, another F-89C was lost to a wing failure on September 15th.

* On September 22, still another F-89C of the 74th FIS experienced an in-flight structural failure when its crew heard a loud bang and saw one of their wings fold up over their cockpit. Fortunately, both men managed to exit the plane and lived to tell the story.

The Air Force grounded all F-89s where they were. Air Defense Command was so enraged at the latest problems with the jinxed aircraft that it ordered Northrop to move the F-89s to modification centers using company test pilots and at company expense.
In November, Northrop began an intensive analysis and redesign effort on the F-89C's wing, a process which ultimately would cost taxpayers $17 million and take nine months to complete.

Northrop's engineers soon identified the problems that had combined to cripple the F-89C. The first issue was structural. In order to provide adequate strength for the aircraft's large, thin wing, while at the same time obtaining the lightest possible structure, they had used a promising new aluminum alloy, T75ST, in the highly-loaded fittings where the wing's root was bolted to the fuselage. T75ST had promised high strength with low weight. A drawback, however, was that the fatigue characteristics of the new alloy under extreme conditions were not fully understood. Northrop lacked facilities for testing structural specimens of the Scorpion's airframe to their full design limits, and it was decided that structural simulations of the airplane's wing could be tested to 60 percent of their limit loads and the remaining portion of the stress envelope could be extrapolated mathematically. What the designers did not realize, however, was that several factors inherent in the operation of high-speed jets had combined to make this a foolish choice.

www.nicap.org...

a reply to: Zaphod58

thank you zap, I knew you would have the answer, I suspected that with 2 of them crashing on the same day from the same airfield that something more than coincidence was at play here.

when I read that the plane descended from 30,000 feet to 7,000 feet and then shortly after disappeared from radar I immediately thought:
that plane didn't stop at 7,000 feet (or if it did it didn`t stay at 7,000 feet for long) it kept going and plunged into the lake.

I also thought: 2 of the same planes from the same field crashed in the same day, what did the ground crew miss? or do wrong?

They still haven`t found the remains of the plane but I`m sure someone will stumble across it eventually.

a reply to: visitedbythem

thank you for the picture it gives people a visual of the planes that was involved.

a reply to: Tardacus

In 2006, a company looking for two French minesweepers apparently found the missing aircraft. Their sonar found what is obviously an F-89, sitting upright, in the area the aircraft in question went missing. It was remarkably intact on the bottom of the lake. The sonar images released by the dive company show the right wing, but not the left, so it's possible that the left wing snapped, and they went into the water. The canopy appears to still be intact, indicating the crew didn't eject.

a reply to: Zaphod58

that would certainly fit with the wing problems the F89C was known to have,diving from 30,000 feet to 7,000 feet and trying to level out at 7,000 feet in sub freezing temperatures could have snapped the wing off and sent the plane plunging into the lake.

a reply to: Tardacus

There are claims that the sonar image is a hoax, but the lake is almost certainly where the aircraft wound up. At night, in an aircraft that had known structural problems, it would be easy for the aircraft to come apart in a dive like they made, or for them to have become disoriented and flown into the lake.

As for the other aircraft, it would appear that the pilot may have attempted to go supersonic in a dive. I haven't found the actual crash report, but there were snippets of intercom chatter that was transmitted over the radio, and what is best described as a sonic boom type sound shortly before the aircraft hit the ground.

That plane disappeared and they couldn't find it. To me that means the plane did not end up at the bottom of the lake. That lake isn't very deep like the oceans are. A military satellite would easily be able to find that plane if it was in the lake.

The AFOSI crew gave 3 different explanations to the pilot's wife on what happened, rather than just one. The RADAR ops stated the blip of the plane joined the blip of the large unknown blip and then they both immediately disappeared.

The plane had climbed very high attempting to intercept the unknown target. If his plane had a catastrophic failure at that altitude and fell from the sky, it still would have kept giving a RADAR return all the way down, but that never happened.

So something else had to have occurred. But what is it...That's the unanswered question..

a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed

Satellites don't see to the bottom of lakes, especially in 1953. Lake Superior is still over 1300 feet deep.

The radar images showed only the F-89 dropping off radar as the two returns merged. If the F-89 broke apart then it would disappear off the radar screen. Radar in 1953 was still fairly primitive and couldn't show as much detail as we can get on more modern radar screens.

a reply to: Zaphod58

If the UFO stories are true I doubt a surge of interceptor losses could be covered could it?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Can you explain Lidar?

a reply to: Tardacus
You are very welcome my friend

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed

Satellites don't see to the bottom of lakes, especially in 1953. Lake Superior is still over 1300 feet deep.

The radar images showed only the F-89 dropping off radar as the two returns merged. If the F-89 broke apart then it would disappear off the radar screen. Radar in 1953 was still fairly primitive and couldn't show as much detail as we can get on more modern radar screens.

I was thinking about more modern technology being used to find wreckage in the lake. And an F89c scorpion is a pretty big piece of equipment. It isn't going to turn into confetti up in the air leaving no trace is it? There would be big chunks at the bottom of the lake.
I am sure there is a lot that isn't public about the case, and within that information if it were public would explain a lot.

If the plane broke up at the exact same time as it merged blips with the bogey and then broke up then that means what exactly? I would love to hear your conjecture on that.

a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed

in 1953 in a snow storm how far apart could ground radar distinguish 2 separate aircraft showing 2 separate blips?

The c-47 flying at or about 7,000 feet saw a cloud base below them and it was snowing on the ground.the f89 descended from 30,000 feet to 7,000 feet in close proximity to the radar blip (which we now know was the c-47) the C-47 crew saw no UFO or lights from any other aircraft.
at the point when the 2 blips were in such close proximity that the ground radar couldn`t distinguish 2 separate aircraft,what is more likely to have happened?
a UFO appeared out of nowhere and did something to the F-89 without the C-47 seeing the UFO or the UFO affecting the C-47 in anyway or the F-89 suffered a catastrophic failure and continued to plunge (behind the C-47) below the clouds and into the lake.

I`m fairly certain that when the F-89 descended from 30,000 toward the unknown radar blimp that they weren`t attempting to end up in front of the unknown radar blimp,they were attempting to position themselves slightly above or behind it so that they could attempt to identify it without being seen.

I`m guessing that they were in a high speed uncontrollable descent that took them behind the C-47 and into the clouds below before crashing into the lake.
Descending from 30,000 in a high speed uncontrollable descent behind the C-47 would leave very little time for anyone on the C-47 to see them even if someone on the C-47 was looking out the back of the aircraft at all times.

The crew of the C-47 saw no UFO or any other aircraft and obviously the C-47 didn`t just disappear ( as the ground radar folks claim) because they made it back to base just fine and reported that they saw nothing.

I`m thinking that the F89 broke apart before it even hit the lake and maybe before it even hit the cloud cover,little pieces of a F89 falling out of the sky from 7,000 feet isn`t going to make much of a radar blip.
why the ground radar people said the C-47 disappeared from the radar is a mystery, because we know that`s not true.

a reply to: Tardacus

There seems to be so many versions of this story. What I remember and it could easily be incorrect is that the pilot radioed that he was climbing and taking the plane up higher that he could see it and it was big. The story I have heard a dozen times is that the RADAR returns were very clear and everyone in 2 different RADAR facilities both confirmed they clearly saw the event all the way to the disappearance of both blips.Right after that was when the blips merged which was tracked on secondary and primary RADAR. I remember the way the military handled the case after the event gave the appearance that a lot of aftermath fabrication was being invented to make it go away. Some of the explanations being offered by OSI were pretty insulting to the intelligence of the pilot.

a reply to: NoCorruptionAllowed

yeah, I read that the military changed their story a few times, originally they said it was a Canadian passenger jet but the canadians said they didn`t have any passenger jets in that area at that time,eventually they settled on the story that it was a Canadian C-47 when the Canadians confirmed that they did have a C-47 in that area at that time,but the crew didn`t see anything.

A giant UFO that showed up on ground radar but wasn`t seen by the crew of an aircraft that was in the area at that time is just hard to believe and the same ground radar that detected the UFO didn`t notice or detect that the C-47 not only didn`t disappear but it made it back to it`s base to report that it didn`t see anything.

a reply to: Tardacus

That is odd for sure. It kind of points to a general coverup which wouldn't be a surprise. I heard Richard Dolan speak about this case a long time back, and it was pretty interesting.