Hi to all you aviation flim buff’s out there, I have a question Ive been meaning to ask for ages that was rekindled last night after watching the latest Flight of the Phoenix flim, which I thought was a good attempt but nothing on the original with Jimmy Stewart.
Anyway going back many years when I was a lad in the early 70’s I remember vividly watching a film set either just after or durning the war that featured a USAF bomber crew crash landing in the desert, the flim’s plot was roughly centered around them trying to walk away for the downed aircraft (B17 I think) which they were never able to do, always finding themselves back at the wreck. The flim ended with their resuce party finding their bodies at the crash site and the story became aparent that they were ghosts trying to leave which of course they couldnt while their bodies had not had a proper burial.
Does anyone out there recollect this flim, and if so do you know where I might get it from, I havent a clue what it was called or who was in it.
Its just stuck in memory and was one of the many aviation flims that began my interest in all things that had wings and engines.
What I hear you all saying 320psi not banging on about Lightnings has he lost his mind !
Dont worry there’s not much happening on the QRA shed at present the weather has stopped play 🙂
Thanks in advance
Andy
By: 320psi - 7th February 2006 at 20:12
Hi to all, just recived my copy and its as good as I remember,
Thanks for the help in tracking it down
By: J Boyle - 21st January 2006 at 01:29
I think the title of the film was The flight of the Phoenix. I saw it many years ago
Sorry Jules, They’re correct, the film described is “Sole Survivor“.
“Flight of the Phoenix” was a 1965 Jimmy Stewart film where a C-82 Packet crashes in the desert and the survivors build a smaller plane out of the wreck to fly them to safety. It was recently remade with Dennis Quaid and a C-119 Flying Boxcar.
By: Jules Horowitz - 20th January 2006 at 22:18
I think the title of the film was The flight of the Phoenix. I saw it many years ago
By: 320psi - 19th January 2006 at 20:11
Just thought I would add this resume of the flim.
CBS’ first made-for-TV movie, Sole Survivor is a fantasy yarn founded on fact. In 1960, the ruins of an American bomber were found in the Libyan desert…but the remains of the crew were never located. In Guerdon Trueblood’s teleplay, the ghosts of a bomber crew hang around their derelict plane, awaiting the day that their bones will be recovered and given a decent burial. The sole survivor, navigator Russell Hamner (Richard Basehart), has in the intervening 25 years become a general. He joins an investigation team that has come across the wreckage, while the ghosts, headed by Major Devlin (Vince Edwards), plot to expose Hamner as a coward who deserted his post and left his crew mates to die.
By: 320psi - 19th January 2006 at 20:09
Just thought I would add this resume of the film:
CBS’ first made-for-TV movie, Sole Survivor is a fantasy yarn founded on fact. In 1960, the ruins of an American bomber were found in the Libyan desert…but the remains of the crew were never located. In Guerdon Trueblood’s teleplay, the ghosts of a bomber crew hang around their derelict plane, awaiting the day that their bones will be recovered and given a decent burial. The sole survivor, navigator Russell Hamner (Richard Basehart), has in the intervening 25 years become a general. He joins an investigation team that has come across the wreckage, while the ghosts, headed by Major Devlin (Vince Edwards), plot to expose Hamner as a coward who deserted his post and left his crew mates to die.
By: 320psi - 19th January 2006 at 13:29
Hi to all, I have ordered my copy and carnt wait for it to arrive, it must be 30 years since Ive seen it but it still has a lasting impression on me.
Its driven me mad for years, asking people and getting blank looks.
Thanks to all for your help, thats what this forum does really well.
Cheers 🙂
By: MarkG - 12th January 2006 at 11:35
Had a good look and couldnt see it even did a search with no results, what section is it under ?
Cheers
Search found it for me no problem…
By: 320psi - 12th January 2006 at 11:14
Available on DVD from:
Ordered mine already out of curiosity
Had a good look and couldnt see it even did a search with no results, what section is it under ?
Cheers
By: Charley - 12th January 2006 at 08:41
I remember watching this film in the seventies. It’s very spooky and well-worth seeing.
By: AndyG - 12th January 2006 at 07:48
Available on DVD from:
Ordered mine already out of curiosity
By: 320psi - 11th January 2006 at 23:31
Many thanks to all for repling, I to have had many dead end conversations about my memories of this film with people over the years, and with your advice can now go and search out a copy for the collection, will let you know how I get on, the flim really had left an impression on my young mind at the time.
The B25 the crew members playing base ball and the one crew members ghost being left behind because his body was under the tail are all things I had forgot about the plot but have now helped, many thanks. 🙂
Cheers Andy
By: Super Guppy - 11th January 2006 at 13:37
The story has also recently been turned into an opera in Australia , which includes a quite convincing mock-up of a crashed B-17 on the stage.
Details and pictures here :- http://www.themadleemachine.com/
By: J Boyle - 11th January 2006 at 05:23
As I recall the film ends with the one ghost standing alone in the desert after the remains of all his crewmates are found. He had been sure he’d be found since his body was buried under the tail section…he thought they’d recover the wreck.
Other neat points: at the beginning of the film an oil survey crew in a early Cessna 310 finds the wreckage…the B-25 crew comments “it’s a fast looking ship and must be able to do 200 mph”.
As the (faux) USAF H-19 (S-55/Whirlwind) lands…they wonder what it is until one of the pilots identifies the stange machine as a helicopter…he’d seen one in a magazine.
One of the crew then comments “I wonder that’s the only progress mankind has made in 25 years”.
As identifed in the book “Broken Wings, Hollywood Air Crashes” by James H. Farmer, the plane was ex Calif-ANG B-25J 44-30979 was painted up as a B-25D-10 in authentic 1943 MTO colors (but phoney squadron codes) as 41-30257. To achieve the “broken back” look, the fuselage was unbolted (un-riveted?) aft of the wing. The plane was later reassembled, and later dis-assembled for display in a Hollyood prop museum.
It was later scrapped. BTW: Author Farmer, worked on the production…so his account should be considered accurate.
A few years back, I saw the Mitchell used in the “Twilight Zone” episode in Aero Traders yard at Chino.
By: Elwyn - 11th January 2006 at 00:31
I remember one where the crew is watching in amazement near the end as a helicopter flies in to land. One crewman says something like “If that thing doesn’t sprout some wings it’s going to fall out of the sky.” The crew members start disappearing one by one as the helicopter crew discovers the bones of the long dead crew.
By: Steve T - 11th January 2006 at 00:23
Hi all–
The recovered hulk of “Lady Be Good” is extant in Libya BTW. Recently appeared in one of the mags and I was amazed it had survived.
There was another treatment of that basic story. I had not heard of the film “Sole Survivor” before, but earlier in the 60s there was an episode of Rod Serling’s classic “Twilight Zone” anthology TV series called “King Nine Will Not Return”, about a vanished B-25. I remember it only vaguely but the story was similar to that of the real “Lady Be Good”. Saw it as a rerun sometime in the late 70s as I was beginning to be keen on Warbirds.
S.
By: jpeters - 10th January 2006 at 20:34
The Lady be Good?
Earthey,
The “Lady Be Good” was a B-24 bomber assigned to the 514TH Squadron, 376th Bomb Group, 9th Air Force. The plane went missing after a bombing mission to Naples, Italy on 4 April 1943. It was one of the big mysteries of WWII and most assumed the bomber was lost in the Mediterranian.
16 years later in 1959 the bomber was discovered in the middle of the Libyan desert by an oil exploration team, miraculously preserved by the desert environment. The crew had lost their bearing and figured they were still over the Mediterranian when they all bailed out. The bomber continued to fly on auto-pilot until it ran out of fuel and belly landed on the desert floor (440 miles from the Mediterranian coast), breaking the body of the aircraft just behind the main wings. Despite the crash, the aircraft was in an excellent state of preservation. The recovery crew discovered a coffee thermos that still had drinkable coffee inside. They were even able to fire the .50 cal machine guns by simply pulling the trigger. The radio was also still in working condition.
Eventually a ground search was conducted for the crew which had parachuted. The remains of 5 crew members were found in area littered with canteens, flashlights, pieces of parachutes, flight jackets, and other personal effects. According to the recovered diary of one of the crew members, 8 of the crew trekked 85 miles north to the point at which the remains were found. The 8 men had only half a canteen of water among them during their crossing of a desert which reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit at midday.
Much more can be found online…quite a story!!
John
By: gregv - 10th January 2006 at 18:20
I remember that film…
yes, I vaguely remember that film as well. Doesn’t it turn out that the crew member who is still alive is eventually found buried or crushed under the tail section, or something to that effect?
cheers
greg v
By: MarkG - 10th January 2006 at 18:00
From imdb.com
Plot Summary for
Sole Survivor (1970) (TV)A B-25 bomber is discovered in the middle of the (Libian) Lybian desert and an Air Force investigation team is called in to examine it. The team quickly discovers that it has not been touched since crashing a quarter century earlier. They also discover the plane’s navigator survived and is now an Air Force general. The problem? He said the plane went down in the (mediterrainian) Mediterranean Sea after the captain ordered the crew to bail out. This story has an interesting supernatural twist.
A bit more from Wikipedia…
“This story has an interesting supernatural twist; the crew of the bomber spend their days endlessly playing baseball in the desert waiting to be rescued. . .”
That certainly sounds like it.
By: Jan - 10th January 2006 at 15:48
Jogging my memory a bit, details on the filming of ‘Sole Survivor’ can be found in; Farmer, James H. Broken Wings: Hollywood’s Air Crashes. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1984.
Regards,
Jan
By: Chipmunk Carol - 10th January 2006 at 15:38
From imdb.com
Plot Summary for
Sole Survivor (1970) (TV)
A B-25 bomber is discovered in the middle of the (Libian) Lybian desert and an Air Force investigation team is called in to examine it. The team quickly discovers that it has not been touched since crashing a quarter century earlier. They also discover the plane’s navigator survived and is now an Air Force general. The problem? He said the plane went down in the (mediterrainian) Mediterranean Sea after the captain ordered the crew to bail out. This story has an interesting supernatural twist.
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January 10, 2006 at 1:37 pm