Flight of the Phoenix & Paul Mantz -

I have seen that footage of him clipping the crest of a dune. I distinctly remember that the post mortem exam did find alcohol in his blood. Many of the old aviation guard drank and flew. I saw it many times when I worked at the Sarasota airport in the late forties. One of the worst was a plane load in a Stinson SR-9 that made a silky smooth landing but when it taxied in and parked, the aroma of whiskey from the cabin would have knocked you over. I refueled them and they went on their way to the Miami Air Maneuvers. When Mantz was at our airport during a filming we got to know him pretty well and when the rest of the cast was out painting the town he stayed in his hotel room out of sight.If he drank, he did it in privacy.

 

I agree with you on everything. Drinking and flying is the worst that one can do.

 

graphic footage
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n82nN_lqn58]Paul Mantz "Flight of the Phoenix" accident - YouTube[/ame]

 

Thanks.

Wow, that was actually not a bad landing... maybe he was thinking 'touch and go'.

Total structural failure of the 'aircraft' killed him.

The copilot was OK?

 

You can see the fuselage (boom) break as soon as he touches down (on initial 'bounce'). Very well could have been starting to fail during flight, since as you noted the touchdown was not that bad.

 

I guess I made a brain short in Mantz clipping a dune, I was off on that for some reason. I have to agree , that wasn't that bad of a landing. Not a hard bounce or anything but to me it looked like drag loads from digging into the sand rotated the forward section and coupled with a weak fuselage (boom) caused the failure. Just my own SWAG. After a second look , the initial bounce failed the boom and the front end rotated to complete the break.

 

Front end rotated due to lack of stabilizing down load on the tail after the boom failed.

 

If you have a couple minutes to watch the video, it says that Paul Mantz and Bobby Rose were both on the plane. Rose survived but Mantz was killed.

I used 'copilot', but that's not the correct term... he was probably just a passenger, he was a stuntman.

 

I found this in wiki regarding the alcohol issue:


"Some who were with Mantz during the shoot dispute that he was flying under the influence. It should be noted that the toxicology tests were performed several hours after the accident; at that time it was not understood that, in the absence of refrigeration, normal postmortem biochemical processes produce blood ethanol and yield a false indication of BAC level. The Civil Aeronautics Board findings of blood alcohol and pilot impairment may well be incorrect"

 

You are more righter than the way I said it.

 

How completely weird

I just got done re-reading for the umpteenth time "Flying blind" a historical fiction novel by Max Allan Collins. The anti-hero in the novel is Nathan Heller a gum shoe detective based out of Chicago. Collins drops Heller into every single major mystery of the 20th century and Heller (for the most part)solves them. In Flying blind he's majorly involved with Amelia Earhart. Mantz is portrayed in the book as being her main instructor for the majority of her flights later in her career up until her disappearance and death in 1937.

 

I think that I mentioned this once before. In chats with Paul Mantz he had nothing much good to say about Amelia's flying skills and judgement.

 

I rushed to my evaluation on the boom failure. After looking at the video more carefully I could see that the rotation of the forward part of the plane started immediately after the boom failed and then it contacted the dirt. So, Curry has it correct, the loss of the down load of the horizontal stab allowed the front section to do the ol' nose down pitch. If I recall, the highest fuselage stress is usually just aft of the wing so I wonder if the boom had been modified for the movie vehicle because I don't recall that the Fairchild had a weak point there as it did in some other areas.

 

I did some reading on the TallMantz plane (Tallmantz Phoenix P-1, N93082).

It was built offsite.

It used wings from a Twin Beech (Beech model 18)

The engine, wheels and other parts were from a T-6.

Most of the flying was done by Frank Tallman. He was hurt go-carting. They were just doing a 'check' flight to make sure they had good footage with Mantz standing in for Tallman.


After the wreck, they used a North American O-47 with modifications for subsequent shoots.

They removed the canopy of the O-47, installed bracing to look somewhat similar to the Mantz plane, installed skids and other parts to sort of disguise it.

 

If you see the scene when the "Phoenix" returns to civilization, as it flies overhead a keen eye will note that it's the O-47.

 

Yes Collins (the author)didn't shy away from that.

 

I remember reading an interview of Frank Tallman many years ago. He said that Mantz had retired from the flying duties of the company by that time. No reason was given why. He went on to say his injury left him out of it and any other pilots they had were already committed to other jobs. Mantz volunteered to keep things on schedule.

I also remember Tallman saying he was so depressed by Mantz's death he didn't care well for the injury he got and it got gangrene. He wound up losing part of a leg and as a result FAA required him to reearn all his certifications. I don't believe they are as stringent about that anymore but they made him jump through a lot of hoops.