The crewless B-17 Ghost fortress that landed itself
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มิ.ย. 2020
- One of the darkest mysteries of ww2 to this day. The story of the "Ghost bomber" b17g that managed to land without any crew on board. NOTE : The footage in this video is the best closest representation to what happened. Its not the actual footage
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Hey have you seen this before? th-cam.com/video/WGzGrdLhzis/w-d-xo.html
The plane landing by itself is not a strange thing. But a plane landing by itself on an airfield is strange.
really strange
random airfields during ww2 would've been common hey?
With its landing gear down.
Look at 1:22 a member of crew jumps out. Story is BS.
@@zenoelea8239 Well spotted! The plane is still moving and the door is closed. Next frame shows the door open, plane still moving and a guy jumping out. Actually Im beginning to wonder if the clip is not of the actual aircraft. The serial number seems to be wrong according to other comments.
B17: I want to go home
Crew: You only have 2 engines running and we won't make it
B17: Well get out and I'll find my own way home
And lighter the weight of the crew, it could make it.
B29 : wtf a crew less b17 hey! Where's your crew
pffffthahahahahha
@@bamxire8845 B29 : not funny
@@brokenuser-fw7xk Right. Okay. LOL
There are only 2 possible scenarios for this story. Either the crew jumped out and flapped their arms safely landing in Belgium OR they had extra chutes.
I think they flap their arms to land which seems to be the only possible scenario
Th video and story are not the same. This video represents a story that may be based on an actual event.
@@LondonTurner-sv2nl I think they just put their arms out in the air and glided safely to the ground
Or option 3 : they just straight up lied...
Belgium is so repulsive that it lessens gravity from those approaching from above.
As a mechanic, this has to be the purest definition of the ghost in the machine. Love the content !
My understanding is that the parachutes were used, but the British officer who entered the aircraft found empty parachute bags, which he mistakenly believed to be full.
huh yeah that actually makes sense
Its the only thing that makes sense
Genius
Unless the crew was lying!!! They never got on board the plane. Just the pilot and co pilot. They brought along two extra chutes to bail out, they all conspired a crazy story to avoid the danger of the mission.
@@markk3652 That huh.....that makes sense
The machine spirit of the B-17 wanted to get home
By the Omnissiah!
The Emperor Protects!
It was like fuck this shit im out
Yeahh but it didnt land where it was born though, it landed in England when its home is the United States.
@@getgoodbruh3764 Maybe it wanted to fly again, or had short term memory going to its home base.
Just a typical glitch in the matrix. After the crew bailed, the plane managed to escape physics render distance so it continued to coast. Eventually it was far enough away that it got completely reset to stock, reinstalling the parachutes and removing any paint added after manufacturing. The program was then confused because it still found itself running and in the air so, when it approached render distance of the air base, it assumed it was already in landing mode so it rendered with the gear down. By the time physics kicked in, the plane was close to the run way and had already nearly completely landing procedure just short of actual touchdown.
I am BSing, of course, but it would explain a lot
actually a few people have theories that we are in a simulation. no not like the matrix more like rick and morty when the aliens wanted ricks dark matter fuel.
69 likes
@@JS-rv3et but in actuality they want the fusion power humanity is currently working on. they're gonna steal it all! >:(
No no, I think you're on the right track.
Trust in Jesus Christ
I served in the U.S. Air Force. In planes without ejection seats it was not unheard of for planes taking off to carry extra chutes, 1extra for each crew member, just in case.
ah that makes more sense ty
Who shut the hatch then?
@@ernestchadwell9069pretty sure the hatches opened against the wind, so possibly air resistance closed them during flight.
Mystery solved, there!
Not only is there's no place to stow additional chutes, but "extra" parachutes are not issued to air crew. The entire story is pure fiction.
When you jump off your bike and watch it keep going, but it accidentally parks itself
Yeah um big difference
@@tambosnipes1652 You dont say? 🙄
@@toxics. yep I dont I just come up with the most useless comparison
@@tambosnipes1652 This guy 😆
one time my bike threw me. as i hit the ground i watched the bike right itself and keep going down the path. i had to jump up off the ground and chase it til i caught it. i would love to see a vid of that, still don't understand what happened.
The pilot : "We can't get the plane back to a base and land"
The plane : "Fine, I'll do it myself"
Indeed 😂
😂😂
Exactly. She always got her crew safely back to their air base safely, and even when the crew were all dead and the plane was out of fuel, she did her duty.
Lol
Maybe Sgt. Vittie was thinking of some cartoon character like this ---> upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Jay_Jay%27s_pilot_model_%281994%29.jpg
Crew: we are heading into the flak
B17: no we are not does sharp turn back home, and everyone falls off during the sharp turn
I heard about a P-38 doing the same thing. It was the only fighter this particular squad lost that day. Here's the mystery. The plane was about 2 hours late and when the tanks were examined, the tanks were completely dry! And the pilot was in the cockpit but he had been dead for over 2 hours.
Jesus. Know where I can read more about it?
@@ThatNascarGuydon’t use the lord’s name in vain
@@Mr101editzJesus tap dancing Christ
@@crazydrummer181 …
@@ThatNascarGuy I couldn’t find a source for that, but you could research about the p38 that was frozen in a glacier for 50 years
No crew? A dozen parachutes? Ah they must have turned off crew models
Sounds more like they've tried to bailout before it crashed into the runway and altitude was too low for parachutes. So they had jumped from around 6-10 meters before plane approached, died and locals had trouble finding the bodies. Maybe a lake was on the approach and they tried their luck?
Answers are here: www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/what-phantom-ghost-fortress-b-17-that-landed-at-an-airfield-no-crew-were-on-board.html
TLDR; The chutes found were reserve chutes.
@@TheArklyte No one would chose to jump without a chute and hope for the best... its suicide. Much better chance of survival just ridding the bird in.
@@TheArklyte
A ,fall from 3.floor (~13 meters)the speed you reach is ~ 50kmt/31mph....
Water don't softened the landning.. in that speed and the way you get out it would be like hitting a concrete floor
If you see the clip the plane is higher than 13meters.. is you see the trees.. that about that high, about 25-30 meter at before clearing the trees
@Bill Fauber Nope, I have read many accounts of this, and reserve chutes were always carried due to bullets destroying many. Gave the crew an extra chance of getting out.
Oh god imagine preparing to help the people inside and there are no people in it
Me: Uhh...where are the pilots?
B17: Gone, they left me. They think i was broken so they paracuted
Me: ...
*pooping pants intensifies*
It wanted to go home, so it tried.
Me : CONFUSED SCREAMING !
imagine being one of the crew who left, and you later found out the plane didnt crash as you thought it would, but landed itself
Ok so…. My theory as to what happened…
This crew is fairly new to this B17, they haven’t even had time to give it a name and personalise it. Parachutes were already on board, but they boarded with a set perhaps not realising the aircraft was not equipped with them.
Lesser experienced crew members mistake the impact of flak as fire, or another phenomenon which has that kind of appearance.
They bail, leaving the surplus parachutes. Engines splutter back into life and the B17 is pointed in just the right direction, losing altitude just right to make it to that field. Given how many B17s were abandoned and how many airfields there were, I don’t find it too unbelievable that this happened at least once. The landing gear I cannot explain for sure, but perhaps it was deployed to slow the aircraft to make it easier to bail safely, perhaps it was down as the result of damage.
The captain was described as "experienced"
@@ohger1 Experienced with what?
They bailed right after the landing gear was deployed just in case the plane didn't crash into peices.
@@ToolofSocietyswimming in antarctica obviously
Just my uneducated wild guess: They did use parachutes and had brought their own for some reason. You know, maybe they were new to that plane and didnt have confidence that the ones stocked on board were functional or whatever. I would probably pack my own parachute if I had the chance, instead of trusting that whoever did it. And the plane not having a name or any extra painting on it says it may not have had an assigned crew. Maybe there were even extra flak jackets on it for this reason also. So the crew jumps - the plane now weighs less and is on autopilot. Unless the pilot said otherwise it would be totally normal to drop landing gear before they jumped - maybe he even had the plane set up for landing because he thought they were going down prior to jumping. Nose up, not full power to engines and so on. Then he said, no lets jump and never bothered to reset the plane. Once the crew is off the plane continues on, not gaining speed really and not gaining altitude either. The chance here is that the plane eventually does drop altitude as it also intersects an allied airfield. That alone is pretty crazy! However, whatever - its still an amazing chain of events!
Noice
Why not just ask the crew where they got the parachutes….
Because its a fake story used as a coverup for a covert mission.
just take chute apart and repack they used mothers and wife's to pack chutes in factory
or so the trustworthy government said........
Lowering the landing gear with broken engines is never reccomended until it's absolutely necessary. All you're doing is introducing drag and making it harder for the plane to stay in the air.
This takes the phrase "jesus take the wheel" to a whole new level............
Jesus, TAKE THE STICK!
sosig
Jesus.... 🤔 Now who is that? One might wounder 🤔
Jezus up in heaven " did I ever tell you when i took over a b17 and landed it in Brittain back in ww2 when the crew bailed out?
You have Gordon Ramsay spelled wrong
WT pilots: Ugh, pilot sniped again, and my plane is still flying fine!
Every damn time
Yep 😂👌
And the Co pilot doesn't seem to know how to fly the plane
@Waffle King in arcade if the plane timer runs out you can still control the plane for a second or two
"Ill show them!", *2 days later the IL-2 lands at an airfield in Alaska map from fortress with a missing wing and no crew*
"If your pilot didn't land you to the ground then do it yourself."
-B-17 The Angry Fortress
If a plane is trimmed and stabilized properly, it wants to fly. As a single engine pilot, we are taught if we end up in clouds and lose situational awareness, let go of the controls and the plane will usually take care of itself.
I agree with your username.
Indeed fuk TH-cam for changing my name.
Let go? Yea if you have balls THIS big. I could never find the discipline to fly an airplane. Just driving is hard enough!
Its because most planes are designed to be aerodynamically stable, coupled with proper weight and balance. Basically, if a pilot lets go of the controls during straight and level flight, (trimmed correctly) the plane will start descending, causing it to pick up speed. As the plane picks up speed, the wings generate more lift, causing the plane to start climbing again. As it climbs it, loses speed until it slows down enough to start descending, Rinse repeat. In a complete loss of spatial awareness in IMC conditions, it's better to let the plane do this little dance while you re orient yourself and looking at your instruments, then tunnel visioning manually flying the plane while disoriented unable to determine what's up or down and accidently fly to the ground or fly at such an odd Angle of attack you stall or end up inverted. (because in IMC conditions in a plane, you can't trust your senses, you can be in a 90* bank and still feel like your level) @@johnalexander7490
Its funny you say that, most sail boats are the same, let go of the tiller and sheet lines and the sailboat will go head to wind and settle, , , , usually
@@johnalexander7490 There have been situations where pilots induce oscillation, losing control of the plane. Planes are actually pretty stable, and in some scenarios, letting go of the controls will cause the plane to self stabilize. Sometimes letting the plane fly itself is the proper course of action. I've encountered this in flight simulators, and it can be unnerving cause you try to get the plane stable and it just feels like it refuses to. Let go of the controls and the plane will settle down and then you can get back to flying.
When they say jesus take the wheel never thought about jesus piloting the B-17
@@georgivanev7466 no no that was Allah...
@@FallazTheDane 😳😲😂😅
@@FallazTheDane lmaooo im muslim and it's fine 😂 no need to be triggerd
@@FallazTheDane Damn, got him
Lars Falgren iM tRiGgEREd
this was pretty interesting
Oh, wow. It’s so interesting that gamers like it..
Oh ok thanks for telling me before I watched the video
ok
Creepy
The pilot of this aircraft was Harold R. DeBolt.
The B-17 is legendary for being one of the toughest warplanes to ever fly. This is just another feather in its cap.
the b-17 was like :"ight these guys are out now , let me just land myself then if nobody else is gonna do anything"
"The footage is the closest representation to what happened, IT'S NOT THE ACTUAL FOOTAGE" read the description. Creative fiction writing.
Kind of a bit correct.
Like duh seeing in this footage you can see the door at the back open and someone on the plane jump out just after it stopped.
@@peterforget8296 also one undercarriage had not deployed.
@@peterforget8296 yes, I saw that too. wtf
Yeah. I kinda guessed that when I saw people jumping out of it on the ground.
Plot twist: Somebody accidently invented modern day autopilot with landing capibillities and this was a secret mission send by the US Air Force
Edit: Lmao go to comments for discussion
Honestly, this isnt nonsense lol
They outfitted radio control for a b-24 to fly it loaded with explosives into bunkers in Japan.. I can't remember exactly why but it was discontinued. 100% plausible, maybe even likely.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aphrodite
I mean...why test it like that? I get you being sarcastic so it's cool. You wouldn't test it with a bunch of people on the ground at a populated airbase close to the war. You would test that kind of system until perfection and then deploy it for use. No reason to "test" anything like that. Maybe the chutes they found were back ups? If your main one got hit by shrapnel you have a second one? I'll have to research and see if that was something done. Who knows what's up with this incident. The dots, when connected don't make a picture, just a squiggly line that says nothing! LOL so there probably is some secret of some sort that was involved and is lost to time. I just doubt it was testing of an auto pilot. As I said that's just a pointless way of doing something that can be done without endangering lives and all the other problems that come with landing unannounced at a military air base lol!
It wasn't called the USAF yet, it's was called the Army Air corps.
The remote control planes were used to attack German targets not Japanese
The remote control planes couln't take off, a pilot had to be on board for taking off then arm it then bailed out, and a chase plane had to follow along side because the signal for the remote was very weak.
Joseph Kennady jr was one of those pilots and he was killed when the plane detonated prematurly.
Most likely, the Germans used them in the Mediterranean. The pilot aircraft was situated several kilometers ahead.
That 17 was like,”Fine, I’ll do it myself.”
Except at 1:22 you can see a man jumping out the rear door just before the plane came to a stop. I highly doubt someone jumped into the plane while it was rolling to a stop.
You are exactly correct. Great pickup.
This is not the actual footage
@@josephbieberly8624yes at least one jumped
Thanks for the comment and support on the channel timp, please could you state at which point in the video you saw this incident? We will do our best to clarify, please do tell :)
@@user-pk5jf4hp5b Thanks for the comment and support on the channel, please could you state at which point in the video you saw this incident? We will do our best to clarify, please do tell :)
I want the crew less b-17 as a premium in war war thunder
You can't get pilot sniped if you don't have any pilot
@@testingphaze4853 true
Yessss
@@testingphaze4853 lol
You can move it but only barely
To this day nobody has asked the crew how they did it. They’re just always so busy and never had time for an interview.
That´s what i thought too! I expected the surviving crew members knew how they gou out of it.
I thought it was crewless
You would think that the captain could have gotten in trouble for leaving a good running airplane.
This doesn't make any sense at all. They keep going back to the twelve parachutes still in the plane but never suggest that they may have been spares. They can track down what the crews mission was and what occurred but they have no idea how the crew got off the plane??? Waiting 20mins to approach the landed plane was taking it a stretch too far as was not knowing how to enter. Probably a WWII Urban Myth.
I smell something.
Have you seen this strange story ? th-cam.com/video/jUXwpdgwbvQ/w-d-xo.html
Cheers I'll check it out
I wonder if this could have been one of the first tests of the radio controlled B-17s that were used toward the end of WWII?
Excellent point ! It would have been classified too !
That's what I was thinking also
@Jardel a neat by air field? Maybe they were testing long range? We'll never know
Ask Joe Kennedy Jr. Oh, sorry he died in a crash of one of them.
@@saddletramp6935I thought the same thing. That story of the remote controlled guided bombers that Kennedy died testing is amazing.
That's a ww2 transformer right there
They need to make a WW2 transformer movie. That would be awesome
@@petrbala16 imagina a sherman tramsformer taking it up with a tiger lmfaoo
the PID must be HUGE in it
AAHHH THE MACHINE SPIRIT OF THAT ANCIENT MACHINE IS STRONG!
THE OMNISSIAH SEES ALL!
Everybody gansta till the bombers starts singing in high gothic
Imagine going on a bombing run without first applying sacred oils on the fuselage. This comment was made by the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Where is this Bombers Tech Priest? He has commited a great heresy abandoning his charge in the heat of battle, The Commisar would like to have a word.
@@alpharius8512 *The Commisar's bolter would like to have a word.
That is no Machine Spirit, that is archeotech! Heresy!
you did not see the guy jump out after it landed
Thanks for the comment and support on the channel Tokker
@@FlakAlleyit happened at 5:54 the guy jumps out the side tail gunner
@Thevoid562 glad someone else noticed it.
@@CreateHarmony Thanks for the comment and support on the channel Create, please could you state at which point in the video you saw this incident? We will do our best to clarify, please do tell :)
In my hometown in Southern Indiana, back in the 40s, a plane took off by itself after being started and flew from the airport to Chillicothe Ohio and crashed .
@@christonefeltzs5149 no there was nobody on board. It flew unmanned for 150 miles and thankfully crashed into a field without harming anyone
My grandfather was an aircraft mechanic for hungary in ww2, later in the war he was mobile, got a call to check condition and refuel a mail plane, apparently the pilot got out to deliver the mail, with the engine running, the loose throttle on the old mail plane apparently rattled to full power and the plane took off and flew till it ran out of fuel and landed elsewhere, i cant recall wether it nosed over and damaged the prop or not, but i remember him saying it was easily repaired and back on its way the following day
Just goes to show how bad of a pilot you have to be to crash a plane.
@@bradsanders407 LOL... truth
*B17G's girlfriend:* _babe come at hangar !!_
*B17:* _can't, my crew jumped out, my engines are dieing_
*B17G's girlfriend:* _nobody is at hangar_
*B17G:*
*at hangar
how they smash tho
@@jakartagamer6188 you see the gun on the back and the front?
iwan wahyudi ah, I see
Takumi? What are you doing here?
I actually read an account of this story. One thing was that at this time, the planes actually carried 2 parachutes for each crew member. The damage from the flak could not be seen as the damage from the forced landing covered it up. One wheel dropped due to flak damaging the hydraulics. And to make things even stranger, once the crew bailed out, the plane left the turbulent air and the air calmed rapidly. Just a totally fluky coincidence all round.
One problem with that, on the B-17 the landing gear is operated electrically. The hydraulics only operate the cowl flaps and the brakes.
Some of this story is probably embellished and/or inaccurate. It was just a lucky event - the B17 simply lost height while on auto pilot and luckily landed in a plowed field near an army encampment. I am not even sure that parachutes were found, just some of the crew's flying gear remaned aboard.
@@graememcelligott8874 The account I read was from the crew. And it was SOP to carry extra parachutes on board.
It had to have carried extra parachutes, I would figure that was SOP because the damage the aircraft could have received from fighter attack and flack attack would most definitely damaged the chutes because the were stored on the walls of the interior fuselage. Nothing worst then having to bail out and half the chutes are tore up from bullet and cannon fire. A lot of weird things happen in that war just due to the enormity it encompassed, the six years of that war was the most climatic event of modern mankind, nothing before, or after can ever come close to WWII.
Unique series of events? Yes! Impossible? No.
Good plane! Pets the fuselage. Gooooooood plane!
The one with the shattered front lost the navigator, bombardier, and the copilot I believe was critically wounded. Pilot was less seriously wounded. But they got that plane down amazingly. I don't remember if the copilot survived though.
Did it hit another plane head on wtf
American bombers: “yo dudes... what if we like.. made the airplane fly itself to an airfield and like freak out the belgians...”
Pilots: *Die midair before the plane can land*
B-17: “Fine, I’ll do it myself...”
Lol that dialogue is so Family Guy
Thanos troll face
It's a mystery how the crew escaped without parachutes?!? Yet all 10 of them was safe on the ground? Here's a wild idea. Now I know this might sound farfetched and all, but....HOW ABOUT ASKING THEM!!!! I mean really, do I need to do all the thinking around here?
I am assuming they just hopped out of the plane right before it landed.
@@DanielMartin-eq2kk Sounds plausible. I often jump onto planes just before takeoff. Sometimes just after takeoff, if they have a low angle of ascend.
@@realitycheck3363 Is that sarcasm or is that your actual job?
@@DanielMartin-eq2kk What? No, I'm a professional Plane Hopper. It's basically like Feed Hoppers, only with a better pay grade, and in my humble opinion, better uniforms.
@@realitycheck3363 top kek
Crew : Everyone bail , this plane's not going to make it.
Fortress : Hold my beer.
One of my favorite true stories from the war, about apparently miraculous events seen by hundreds of reputable witnesses whose accounts all agreed. The wheels had been lowered, which would not have been the case when the crew parachuted, and the engines were running, but throttled back from higher cruise settings, without anyone on board, since it slowed after landing, perhaps even having breaks applied, to come to a stop from cruising speed. That is fascinating.
@@bobcurrie1642 did you somehow not read the description or are you pretending to be this stupid
@@cosmo4698 The OP already set be straight on that. It should be mentioned outright in the video and not disclaimed in the description. Gimme a break douchebag.
@@bobcurrie1642 hey man, it's not my fault you can't be bothered to use your eyes. Take your nuts and store them in a cool, dry place.
@@bobcurrie1642 why would you assume that it's the actual plane and not stick footage?
Video cameras weren't exactly popular back then.
False. You can clearly see someone open the rear hatch and exit the aircraft.
I read about this several years ago, According to what I read there were two chutes per man at that time. The crew did bail out after the pilot told the commander in the air their problems. The plane did land and it was in a plowed field. The crew was found and their stories matched what the investigators found. Strange but true.
B-17 G crews wore the parachute permanently over an electrically heated flight suit. They literally sat on the chute and didn't take them off.
It’s almost like “The Man from Taured”
Yes, I read this in Martin Caidin's 'Ghosts of the Air'.
In a plowed field is something completely different than neatly on an allied airstrip
The extra chutes could be because they very often got damaged by flak.
It could also be that the crew simply had their own chutes and they ones on the plane were from another operation.
I have 22 minutes of "co-piloting" Sentimental Journey. A Queen is easier to fly than a Cessna 165. The pilots and crews didn't call the B-17 "Queens" for nothing. The B-24 carried more bombs farther and got you there, but the "Queen" would bring you BACK as they could survive unbelievable battle damage and continue to fly. Remember, these were manned and flown by teenagers mainly. My late neighbor was the oldest man in his crew at an elderly 22 years of age. His pilot and co-pilot weren't 21 yet.
"I have 22 minutes of "co-piloting" Sentimental Journey."
Wow....22 whole minutes. That makes you an expert. lol
Jack44M Ricky is very special.
@@Jack44M Hmmm are you implying that knowledge acquired second hand is invalid?
my guess, it was a gag by the pilot.. he landed somwhere, had the crew leave, took off again and tried to fly her back to uk, but bailed once he had the thing in stable approach or landed it and an bugged out right after and hid.. only other thing is a stow away, mechanic or something ...we'll have to see the details , and look into it deeply to make any logical conjecture..
and it's totally true, the 17 was super robust.. the 24 was as well, but the Davidson wing made higher landing and t/o speeds a bit tougher to contend with, plus a tail dragger is easier to get on the mains on touch down.. the 17 just floated in like a ga plane..the 24 had to be driven in ..
Awesome bro. To anyone who is a real appreciator of WW2 aircraft that's rare and very cool. I'm totally jealous, would love to fly a B-17 even for 22 fuckin seconds. Ignore the brain dead comments above, those wankers couldn't find their arse cracks if they sat on them.LOL
Thank you for flying RyanAir, last year over 90% of our flights arrived on time, we hope you enjiyed yours and we look forward to welcoming you onboard again soon. RyanAir, Low fares Made simple
A very good story of the annals of WW2 around the campfires of boy scouts, cub scouts while roasting marshmallows and watching shadows dance off nearby woods. Ghost planes,missing crews,great campfire story for sure!
Dang, no more Boy Scouts!
@@ronaldnugent4232rip
Check out when a P-51 pilot Refused orders to Spare an Enemy : th-cam.com/video/xNfAlNsDVDs/w-d-xo.html
i read about that
Scolling down there's alot of B17 mystery
It's easy to explain the parachutes. For some reason, they took off with extras on board. It's a bit tougher to explain the lack of damage. Perhaps the crew embellished the damage to cover for why they bailed out. Perhaps they thought the safest place for them to finish the war was a POW camp.
How did a SKELETON Land a Plane? Flight 513
The crew’s guardian angels flew the plane.
Two engines down. No, one. Um, no, all working, one damaged upon landing. Heavy flack, but no damage. Except for the direct hit in the bomb bay, which somehow didn’t detonate anything. No mention of a bomb load on landing. Landing gear dropped by themselves. Plane stopped on or near a friendly runway, without benefit or necessity of brakes.
Does anyone else smell a pile of bullshit?
@Orange Man Always Wins Whaaaaat ?
Wen & Wer did That take place ?
- I'm Not calling you a lier or saying it's bullshit,,,, I'm actually Really interested in These kinds of stories.
The "Shit That Happens, But There's NO Logical Explination For HOW That Shit Happend" Type Of Storys.
I Think Their Very Interesting .... & I Can't Help But Wonder = WTF ... There HAS to be a Real Reason
It was the first drone,remote control from the tower
I'm reaching for my can of bullshit repellent as I type
Hallo Mike M. The story certainly sounds like bull, but amazingly it isn't! Many websites record the story, some with tiny details wrong. The serial number of the B17G was 4338545, and its pilot captain was Harold R. DeBolt (13 Oct 1915 - 12 March 2000), who served with the 401st Bomber Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group, based at RAF Bassingbourn in England. On 21 Nov 1944 the 91st conducted the first of several raids against synthetic fuel works in Merseburg. The pilot said that the aircraft took flak in the bomb bay door, which prevented the bombs being dropped, without detonating them. The main landing gear, tail gear, wing flaps and bomb doors of the B17G were electrically operated, with only the brakes and cowl flaps being hydraulic. If the electric circuit was cut by the shell that hit the bomb door, the latch which locks the gear up would fail, so that the gear would drop and lock mechanically. The pilot logged that he abandoned the mission and headed home. The landing gear hugely increased drag, and with the weight of the bombs, the B17G couldn't maintain speed and altitude. The B17G's engines had a habit of cutting out when operated for a long time on full throttle, due to overheating. They often restarted once they had cooled enough, provided the propellers were turning freely. Harold DeBolt logged that two engines cut out, and the aircraft was losing altitude too fast to make England. He couldn't risk landing with the bombs after the bomb bay door had been hit, for fear that at least one bomb would dislodge and smash into the runway below the aircraft. He flew the aircraft while the other men baled out, and then trimmed it and engaged the autopilot, so that he could jump. The entire crew baled out at low altitude, over Belgium. All men landed safely. The crew met up and were sent to Brussels, where they were assigned a salvaged B17, which they flew back to RAF Bassingbourn. The two overheated engines of the B17 cooled and restarted by themselves. The abandoned B17G was much lighter without its crew, but still lost altitude. It came down faster than normal in a ploughed field not too far from an Allied airfield, but at a very slight angle. It stopped close to an artillery piece manned by a gun crew commanded by John V. Crisp. The aircraft had already slowed significantly by the time one wing dug into the ground and the aircraft wheeled on it. This wing buckled and one of its propellers was written off, adding to the damaged bomb bay, but other than that, the aircraft was intact. The men who found the aircraft weren't familiar with air force equipment. It is possible but unlikely that they discovered reserve parachutes, but they could easily have misidentified other closed packs as parachutes, such as packs holding dinghies, survival rations and gear, warm clothing, and magazines for pistols. Is the story probable? For any aircraft that you select arbitrarily, no, it is extremely improbable! But given that the 91st BG alone flew several hundred missions, that tens of aircraft (at least) flew each mission, that the USAAF had over 100 BGs in November 1944, and that the RAF and a fair number of other Allied air forces also flew hundreds of similar bombing missions, plus the great number of Allied airfields, would you consider the probability of at least one such incident occurring during WW2 to be vanishingly small, moderate, or likely?
@@etangdescygnes thank you!
This is stranger than when my car disappeared at the motorway services, and when I got home it was parked in the garage.
Pilot "weve taken flakk, one enging down...we'll never make it"
Plane" hold my beer"
While they were in the desert with the 8th Army in North Africa in 1942, an an ME109 was hit by British AA fire above my father's unit. The pilot bailed out and while his comrades went to intercept him, my father went to where the ME109 had crash landed itself. The plane was almost completely intact. My father was able to "liberate" a case containing a very fine Luftwaffe "Drilling" survival shotgun/rifle, from inside a hatch in the fuselage.
Back in the '60s, when I was in high school, I read a book about strange events that happened during World War Two. One that I still remember was about a bomber crew member that was thrown clear when his airplane exploded. He was falling toward Earth but was not wearing a parachute. He happened to notice a packed parachute that was falling next to him so he reached out, put it on and pulled the ripcord. He survived the war.
On a different day, a crew member fell without a parachute and landed in a haystack uninjured. He also survived the war.
Caterpiller club!!
That’s partially true but he didn’t grab a chute while falling. The crew member landed in a thicket and survived.
I read a Reader's Digest story in the 1980's about an American tail or maybe ball gunner who was forced to jump without his chute when their plane was hit and caught fire. They were at full altitude and he blacked out almost instantly. Woke up moaning, having fallen 20,000 feet or so and crashing through tall pine trees into deep snow. Germans found him with multiple broken bones but did not believe his story until they saw his harness, minus chute, with everything intact.
So WW2 was just a bunch of coincidences?
I read another story where a falling airman (without a parachute) fell into the updraft of an exploding bomb ,which cushion his fall enough that he survived hitting the ground.
Next time your instructor says "Fly the plane, don't let it fly you!", just remember, you're in a B-17.
:p
Crew: we only have 3 engines critical damage to the frame we can't make it back. b17: hold my beer and watch this
Ah the original Malaysia airlines flight 370
Role reversed too!
Not funny.
Similar sort of thing, although the autopilot on a B-17 really just kept the aircraft straight and level. In this circumstance the Captain lowered the gear and engaged the auto pilot and bailed out. The aircraft gradually lost altitude and touched down in a field. MH 370 likely had the auto pilot engaged and trimmed itself into the water as it lost power from lack of fuel to engines.
They thought they had lost her
In reality she just wanted to greet them at home
Crew: Why does everyone keep saying we didn't have parachutes?
Great video. Keep them coming 👍
There's a similar account to this in the book 'chickenhawk', it's written from the perspective of a huey pilot in vietnam, and in one part of the book it describes an assault gone wrong, and a cobra critically damaged, the rest of the squadron can't get radio contact, but the pilot is keeping formation, so they head back to base, once landed, they see that the cobra has made a heavy landing, they rush over to find that both pilot and gunner are unconscious with heavy blood loss, and once recovered, neither can remember anything beyond a few minutes after being hit
They may have suffered a head injury, which disrupts the transfer of short-term memory to long-term memory, thus everything still sitting in short-term memory is lost.
@@cellularmitosis2 yh, but it's still incredible that both pilots got such similar symptoms
@@piranlittle1394 9
If true the pilot no doubt had some kind of head injury. Probably was semiconcious and the hard landing made him fully unconscious.
A very strange carrot landed at Avalon airport this morning. This is very strange because carrots hardly ever land at Avalon
“Pilots... where we are going we don’t need pilots”
🍻
Just subscribed. That was a great video.
Awesome, thank you!
That title caught my eyes so fast
Okay... this one gave me chills. Some legit creepypasta!
I read this in a book about the B-17 almost 50 years ago. The previous crew were trainees when the call came in for a bombing run. The designated crew took over. The trainees left the chutes in the aircraft, thinking to return.
Phantom fortress: uhh who are you?
Other b-17’s:wait… are you the crew less b17?
Phantom fortress: yeah?
What did the crew answer when asked, "How did you all survive without parachutes ?"
I guess it took off without crew. Lol
Fake it til you make it?
They were found at an airbase... The captain was the last to leave the plane...
I think there was somebody secret on that plane.
They brought x2 the number of parachutes by mistake would be the most likely thing I think.
I'm sure the crew had some pretty good insight as to how they managed to ditch their aircraft and land together safely, despite no parachutes being missing. Someone should have asked them.
They did, they found the crew all alive and safe. Pilots name was Lt. Debolt. Just do a search for "Lt. Debolt B-17"
Very nicely put together thanks for sharing !!!!!
Thanks for watching, have a great day!
Crew leave the plane
The B-17: I’m about to pull what is called a Pro gamer move
No question: This is a case for *Mulder & Scully...*
That’s like hitting the bullseye from 3000 miles with a lawn dart.
Fact is stranger than fiction. Even Rod Serling couldn't have thought of this one.
Doors closing by themselves is unnerving or a breeze. Seeing someone you believed deceased is shocking or mistaken, being touched by the unseen is frightening, but maybe simply an errant nerve twitch. This can be the stuff of a fabled war story primed for TV about a ghost plane or just a secret autopilot test. What say you?
Operation Aphrodite, R/C b-17s
The British didn't understand the American accents.
bret was flying it actually. a tiny spack and no one noticed him
I see
Too Crazy... We will likely Never Know. Thanks for Sharing
I knew B-17 Planes were Air Fortresses or tanks in the sky, but I didn't think it would have a mind of its own
At least the B-17 knew where to land itself.
True
At first I thought it was the bomber that landed in the desert during WWII. No trace of the crew was ever found. Rod Serling's Twilight Zone inspired story was a masterful, and imaginative engrossing tale, inspired by the finding. It sparked and rekindled the minds of thousands into trying to unravel what happened. This too is engrossing.
They actually found the remains of most of the crew of that one in the 1960`s iirc. They tried walking out of the desert when they realized no one would know where they crashed. One crewmember managed to trek quite a distance over a few days before expiring of exposure/dehydration. Must have been horrifying, whatever way they walked there was no chance of escaping the desert. Imagine being the last man left alive and knowing your fate was that of your fallen comrades in a few hours.
the first episode of Season 2 was "King Nine Will Not Return"
The actual plane was the"Lady Be Good", reported lost 5 April 1943.
The ground staff didn’t know how to enter the plane. But there must be an open hatch from which the crew jumped, I guess? Or did they closed it after the jump, haha?
maybe they jumped from the bomb bay doors? I dunno if that is even possible.
maybe the hatch closed.
i mea. if ya open your car door while driving itll shut itself
@@bluecollardadventures2338 Would be my guess too
personels: how did it land?
b17: yes
Pilot: “She’s gone boys, better just ditch her... sorry girl”
B17: “oh HELL no not today buddy”
Well atleast it wasn't fully wreak.
B17: A lady like me nobody dumps!
*All 4 engines roar to life*
A friend's dad was on a B17 crew in England. He told us of the condition of some of those planes returning was totally unbelievable. One tough plane.
Yes! Have a look at some of the German fighter gun camera films, cannon shells bursting all along the wings, but the buggers are still flying!! I had a model of the B-17G 'A Bit-o-Lace' when I was a school lad, she flew out of Rattlesden in Suffolk. In 2006, we moved here to Rattlesden and a few years ago, it was my pleasure to contact former crews families and with their help, reproduced wartime photo's into A4 framed pictures, which are now on show in the Church and The Five Bells pub in Rattlesden.
These old bombers flew so slow they had massive redundancy...
He was a Decepticon named, Jetfire. He had defected to the alliance and took the form of one of their bombers. Upon being ditched he took it upon himself to return to allied territory where he knew he'd be looked after after being greatly wounded. His mission started in Egypt during the battles of WW2 which got in the way of his search, so he decided to switch sides then and there to keep the cons and the third Reich from complicating the situation. This was the last account of him before he was found again in 2009 in the United States.
hahahaha
Wouldn’t Propellorfire be more accurate of a name?
If possible, dig deeper into the history of the plane. Was their a death related to the plane prior to that mission...
Pilot : I can't land, bail out! Bail out!
B-17 : I'm gonna end his career.
Crew: We can't reach Britain with this broken engines we should bail out.
*Crew bails out*
B17: Fine I'll do it myself
Someone jumped out of the plane at 1:21
@@loveslying lol true
plane starts playing "I Will Survive" on the radio.
Crew of 10, there's 1500-2000 lbs.
@@loveslying I think it was someone who entered and Exited
Outstanding commentary and superb editing. Stranger than The Bermuda Triangle!
Thanks!
Funny thing... The Bermuda triangle isn't more dangerous than any other part of the ocean... And it's much less dangerous than other parts like the north sea or the bay of Biscay
Chuck Norris was just 4 years, 8 months, and 14 days old when he suddenly and without explanation, forced the B-17 Ghost Fortress to land unaided.
Crew: *bails out*
B17: fine, i don't need you
😆🤣🤣👍!
One thing to note is that an airfield in WW2 could be placed at any long stretch of open field. The chances of it arriving at one by itself make it practically impossible, but it could happen.
It wasn't an airfield. It was a field.
>get damaged
>crew gone
>land on an airstrip
>refuse to elaborate
B17 chad sigma
A German bomber landed itself at my Dad's school (NE England) with no crew aboard and got tangled in the cricket nets.
There was one policeman trying to keep dozens of kids off it with little success until the army arrived.
Ghost pilots from another Fortress?
Interesting...
-"Trying to catch the Devils herd, riding through the sky"
The spiritual world and paranormal, and science which has yet to be explained due to things we are not yet able to quantity with our current tech or lack of scientific understanding, make this a feasible theory.
Maybe I missed something, but why didn't they just ask the crew how they got out of the plane?
There could have just been another set of chutes in the plane leftover from the previous mission or some other kind of procedural screw up. I’m sure with all the missions flown during the war there were plenty of instances where procedures weren’t followed.
@@johnjensen2217 Parachutes are not personal property and are issued and returned after each mission.
@@flycatchful Also a B-17 has very little space on the inside. Twelve parachutes just lying around would be a huge waste of space.
I don't believe all the chutes were still in place. They couldn't carry extras, and the crew don't have wings.
Mrfrenchdeux ł
Radio controlled my grandfather told me about this. They tried to cover up the fact that we were working on drones. The first unmanned bomber
My guess is that the pilot and co-pilot were the only ones on board just to monitor things and when they saw it aligned and on course to land bailed out a few miles from the field. Hence the new, untouched plane and two chutes missing. Then it's just two officers who need a ride back in a convienently waiting transport.