Mitchell recovery

Air Classics, Sep 1999

A 43-year-old mystery may be solved this summer when the search for a missing B-25 bomber will be conducted by the B-25 Recovery Group. The group will be looking for the Mitchell which crashed into Pennsylvania's Monogahela River on 31 January 1956. The group believes the aircraft is in an abandoned gravel pit near the Becks Run area. The group has arranged financial sponsorship for the undertaking.

Robert Shema, who had grown up in the area and heard about the "mystery plane" for many years is confident that today's technology will locate the Mitchell. After the crash, and for years to follow, rumors started that the Mitchell was carrying nerve gas. . .or an atom bomb.. .or Howard Hughes! Because of this classified cargo, some residents believe the military went to the crash site, raised the plane, and then chopped it up to fit on barges for transfer to another location.

Shema is the project's operations director and he believes the bomber with a six-man crew ran out of fuel on a flight from Selfridge Air Force Base in Michigan to Olmstead AFB in Harrisburg. The six crew escaped the wrecked and sinking bomber but two drowned in the cold water.

Images and artifacts salvaged from the B-25 search will be exhibited in the fall at the Sen. John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, which will mount a billboard on the side of its building to publicize the event. History Center staff will also help the search team with historical research on the bomber.