The Arizona Daily Star - October 15, 1998

20 years ago, Death came from above, A-7D jet crash turned street into an inferno

Author: Raina Wagner

On a clear fall day almost 20 years ago, an Air Force attack jet killed in a manner never intended: Its engine stalled, and 10 tons of dead weight slammed to earth in the middle of Tucson.

Two sisters died in the crash explosion, sending their family into a chasm of grief. Hundreds of parents whose children attended Mansfeld Junior High School counted their blessings as the plummeting jet narrowly missed the school.

The crash prompted a review and eventual policy to reduce military over flights of Tucson. The pilot - hailed as a hero by some, criticized by others for not laying down the A-7D Corsair II in an empty field - began his last year on active duty in the Air Force. And for a while, an uneasiness settled over the city with each passing roar of a plane.

Popping begins - At just after midday, on Oct. 26, 1978, Capt. Frederick L. Ashler was near the end of an uneventful flight from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, where his plane had undergone routine maintenance. Eight miles from the edge of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base runway, he heard popping, similar to an old car without a muffler.

Amid the University of Arizona's red-brick buildings, a patch of green shined like a beacon, and Ashler aimed for it. The green was the football practice field on East Sixth Street at North Highland Avenue, where the Student Recreation Center now stands. The plane was on a path to hit the field when Ashler ejected at an altitude of 200 feet. But immediately the plane banked sharply to the right and hit on Highland Avenue, exploding, disintegrating and setting afire a string of parked and moving cars. Five seconds had elapsed since he ejected. The crash was just 2 minutes and 32 seconds after the strange noises had begun.

Ashler escaped without serious injury, parachuting to the lawn of the Physical Resources building. Highland, however, became a fiery scene of death and injury, with the plane blackening a half-block. One car bore the brunt of the crash, its two occupants burned beyond recognition. Another flaming car held part of the Minder family, Alice and one of her daughters, Joan, 18. A second daughter, Erin, then 12 and a student at Mansfeld, coincidentally walked along Highland at the time of the crash. Mother and both daughters were injured, Erin with a leg cut, Alice and Joan with burns.

Frank Christopher Duarte, also a Mansfeld student, was near the school playground fence bordering Highland when the attack jet crashed. The force of impact sent him 5 feet into the air. He sustained a concussion and rib injuries. Richard Flagg was the fifth person injured that day, hit with a wall of flame as he walked south on Highland. He had burns on his arm, shoulder and down to his ankles, and a back injury as well. Flagg spent three months in the hospital.

Five people on or near Highland Avenue also were hurt when the jet plummeted to the ground. The injured either couldn't be located for this article or declined to be interviewed. But the family that lost the most, the Felixes of Cananea, Sonora, had members eager to talk, saying that by talking about their lives, the two young women who died that day wouldn't be forgotten.

Half of their children die - Of all the ways Marci Felix Harrington could describe that day she chooses this one: The day her parents lost half their children. Harrington's younger sisters, Leticia ``Letty'' Felix Humphrey, 22, and Clarissa Felix, 20, both burned to death after the plane hit Highland, practically landing on top of Letty's tiny Chevrolet Vega. The sisters were looking for a parking spot on their way to 12:30 p.m. classes at the UA.

Clarissa managed to escape from the car and even beat death for a while, despite being burned over 90 percent of her body by the flaming jet fuel. Letty died instantly, fourth-degree burns rendering identification impossible; dental records were used to determine which sister died at the scene. Harrington and her family now live in Tucson, but in 1978 she and her husband of four years, Chuck, had just moved to Billings, Mont. An uncle called with news of the crash.

``I wanted to leave that moment, but there wasn't a plane till the next day,'' said Harrington, an occasional Spanish teacher at Salpointe Catholic High School. By the time Harrington arrived, Clarissa had also died. Harrington cloaked herself in denial at first. ``The hardest thing about something like that is the first morning afterward . . . and you wake up and realize it's not a dream.

'' Harrington was forced into reality because of her mother, Guadalupe ``Lupita'' Felix. ``For the first three years, most of our spare time was dealing with Marci's mom's problems,'' said Chuck Harrington, a lawyer. ``It almost literally destroyed my mother,'' said Marci Harrington. ``She just didn't want to go on.'' Lupita Felix relied on prescription drugs to dull her pain, and eventually needed detoxification.
Finally, electroshock therapy brought Felix back, three years after the accident. ``She still remembers everything, but the pain's not there. It's not that anguish that she felt before,'' said Marci.

The Felixes preferred to let their daughter and son-in-law speak for them. The parents continue to live in Cananea, where Hector Felix Sr. - an American - is a retired mining engineer, and Lupita is an active community volunteer. Marci Harrington described her sisters as virtual opposites. Clarissa was ``bubbly,'' spontaneous and sensitive. Letty was more businesslike, frugal and a bit more reserved.
``Clarissa was full of love of life. Letty was full of love for Billy her whole life,'' Marci Harrington said.
William ``Billy'' Humphrey Jr. was Letty's husband. He was left a widower at 22. The couple had known each other all their lives, ``and they were sweethearts from the day they saw each other,'' Harrington said. Humphrey was American, but he also grew up in Cananea, his father working with the same mining company as Hector Felix Sr. The couple, both UA seniors, had been married just over one year when Letty died. Her husband was left a widower at 22.

Since their families were close, the Harringtons kept in contact with Humphrey for years. He graduated from the university the year after the accident, and eventually remarried. He lives in Nevada. Today, Harrington sighs when she thinks about Billy. ``It was like losing two sisters and a brother.'' Members of the family will gather at the crash site at noon on Oct. 26 to pray.

Government compensation - The U.S. government compensated Humphrey and the Felix family the only way it could - with money. In 1980, Humphrey sued for $7 million, the Felixes for $6 million. It would be another two years before Humphrey would settle with the government, for $100,000.
The Felixes went to trial, and the judge awarded them nearly $400,000. The injured victims sued as well, all receiving compensation in the early '80s. The Minder family still lives in the university-area house the three injured family members were approaching that day 20 years ago.

Douglas Minder, the husband and father of three injured crash survivors, said he didn't want to be interviewed, but spoke a few words on behalf of his family. ``We're all fine, but we don't talk about it,'' said Minder, whose family still lives near the crash scene. ``It's been 20 years since that happened, and people should just forget it.''

Classes just dismissed - Former Mayor and City Councilman Tom Volgy will never forget what he witnessed that day. As he still does, Volgy taught a UA political science class in 1978. Teachers had just dismissed classes across the campus, and thousands of students spilled out of UA buildings. ``I was walking across the mall with one of my students coming out of class and the plane went over our heads,'' Volgy said. ``We were used to that, but this one stopped making any noise. ``We literally saw it come down.''
He ran straight for the crash scene. ``From what I watched,'' Volgy said, ``one of the true heroes in this was the pilot. If he would have bailed out when he was supposed to, it certainly would have crashed into the university or the school (Mansfeld).''

A-7s later phased out - Capt. Ashler remained on active duty in the Air Force through 1979, the year the A-7 was phased out at Davis-Monthan, and the slower, twin-engined A-10 moved in. The Arizona Air National Guard continued to use A-7s though, and Ashler joined the local 162nd Tactical Fighter Group on Oct. 23, 1979. Ashler retired as a lieutenant colonel at the end of 1995, said Capt. Eileen Bienz, spokeswoman for the Guard in Phoenix.

Harrington said her family never blamed the pilot, the military, or even the machine that fell upon her sisters. ``They always looked at it as an act of God,'' Marci Harrington said of her parents. ``It was just like He wanted those two little souls in that little car, and only those two.'' She understands that more could have died that day - potentially more than 300 junior high children. ``We are so thankful that it didn't hit that school,'' said Chuck Harrington, ``but that story doesn't give this family any peace.''

Other incidents - The Oct. 26, 1978, crash was the second time in 11 years that an Air Force jet had gone down over Tucson, killing civilians. On Dec. 18, 1967, an F-4D Phantom fighter-bomber jet crashed into the Food Giant Market at South Alvernon Way and East 29th Street shortly after takeoff. Four people died.

In 1959, a woman was struck and killed when part of a plane fell off the wing of a B-47 Stratojet. That plane didn't crash. The accident occurred near the site of the 1967 crash, about a half-mile farther south on Alvernon Way.

From the report - The Air Force completed its investigative report two months after the Oct. 26, 1978, plane crash. Capt. Frederick L. Ashler was cleared of any wrongdoing.

This excerpt originally appeared in an Arizona Daily Star story one year later.
Q. Just for the record, would you state your name, grade and organization and branch of service?
A. Captain Frederick L. Ashler. I'm in the 357th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron. My AFSC is K1115K. I'm an instructor pilot. . . . The descent was fine.. . . So about 10 miles from the field I put my speed brake (on, and) I pulled my throttle back just a little bit at that time.

I was starting to apply the power back up to about 2,500 pounds which would give me a nice little descent rate down there to 4,000 feet.... But boy, just as soon as I started pushing the mother up, I got a series of pops, bangs whatever, bang, bang, bang, like that. And I was getting set to make an emergency call, and it stopped for just one or two seconds, just quit, I didn't touch nothing. I said, ``Hmm, maybe it will stop and go away.'' However, just as soon as it stopped, it started again, it started popping and banging away.

I made my emergency call. The airplane was continuing to go down. . . . And I said, ``This doesn't look good.'' . . . I looked up at a little green spot on the ground. All I knew was it was a green spot. I didn't know it was a practice football field.

I made a transmission to the tower. It was no use. I was going to have to bail out. And the airplane felt to me like, at that point, it was just like a leaf going straight flat down like this. The ejection sequence worked just like a picture book. . . . I hit the ground, did a roll across my back and stood up . . . and I just briefly got a glimpse of the accident, the flames about a block down the street from me.