In Minneapolis on Thursday, May 30, 1957, Dale wrote, “Memorial Day. Two jet planes crashed near here and fell 20 blocks away. One pilot killed, nine civilians injured. Houses burned. They went right over our house before falling. I saw them.” The ‘death planes,’ as a May 31, 1957 Minneapolis Star reporter called them, were two of four F-9-F Panther Navy jets (above) doing ‘fly-overs’ at Sunset Memorial Park cemetery on St. Anthony Boulevard. Thousands of on-lookers, including Minnesota Governor Orville Freeman and Capt. Frank Gill, naval air station commander, attended the event.
