History's A Disaster
Bloody history and bloodier crimes. Andrew takes a weekly look at all things bloody. From natural disasters to man made atrocities
History's A Disaster
1967 Skydiving Disaster
A free jump from a historic World War II bomber—what skydiver could resist? But when eighteen experienced skydivers plunged through thick cloud cover on August 27, 1967, they faced a horrifying realization. Instead of the expected Ohio airfield below, they broke through to find themselves over the frigid waters of Lake Erie, miles from shore with just minutes before impact.
The Lake Erie skydiving disaster highlights how quickly adventure can turn deadly when safety systems fail. What should have been a thrilling high-altitude jump from a B-25 Mitchell bomber became a nightmare due to a perfect storm of errors: an air traffic controller who mistook a small Cessna for the bomber, a pilot operating beyond his certification, and the fatal decision to jump without ground visibility. The jumpers, many with hundreds of jumps under their belts, frantically shed their heavy cold-weather gear as they descended toward the 40-degree water, trying to improvise flotation devices from helmets and reserve chutes.
Despite heroic rescue efforts launching within minutes—including over 30 boats, Coast Guard personnel, and military aircraft—sixteen of the eighteen skydivers perished in the lake. The aftermath brought significant changes to skydiving safety protocols, particularly regarding jumps near bodies of water. The investigation revealed multiple failures across the system, ultimately leading to successful wrongful death lawsuits against the government for the controller's negligence.
While skydiving in 1967 carried substantial risks, today's sport has evolved dramatically. Modern safety measures, equipment improvements, and rigorous training have transformed skydiving into a relatively safe activity with just nine fatalities across 3.8 million jumps in 2024. Yet the Lake Erie tragedy serves as a powerful reminder that even with experience and preparation, communication errors and overconfidence can still lead to disaster. Listen to discover the full story of this tragic event and how it forever changed the world of skydiving.
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Special thank you to Lunarfall Audio for producing and doing all the heavy lifting on audio editing since April 13, 2025, the Murder of Christopher Meyer episode https://lunarfallaudio.com/
Skydiving is so much fun. You gotta get up early, go to some little rinky-dink airport, watch some stupid ass safety video before getting on some rickety ass little plane that you're not even sure if it's gonna make it off the ground and if it does, is it gonna stay in the air. Then you fly in some circles getting knocked about by the winds until you're well above the air. Then you fly in some circles getting knocked about by the winds until you're well above the clouds and then you get clicked to the experience guide before literally being thrown out the door. No warnings, just one second you're in the door and the next you're being flung into the sky. Then you free fall right into a cloud, which are not as soft and fluffy as they look. Instead they're filled with water vapor that acts like little tiny needles digging into any exposed skin as you fall through it. You also can't see a damn thing until you break through the cloud, and then you get the most amazing view as you look at the ground almost a mile below. At least, that's what's supposed to happen. That was my personal experience, anyways, but for one group of 18 skydivers that's not quite what happened. When they broke through the clouds. They got a completely different sight, a sight that would ultimately lead to the deaths of 16 of them. So what happened I'm Andrew and this is History is a Disaster. Tonight we are taking a sky dive into the 1967 Lake Erie skydiving accident, and tonight's episode is brought to you by Earhart Cloud Maps, inspired by that globetrotting femme fatale, amelia Earhart. You'll never get lost in the clouds again with Earhart. With Earhart Now.
Speaker 1:Nearly 30 skydivers showed up to Ortner Airport in Wakeman, ohio, on the morning of August 27, 1967. They had come at the invitation of Bob Carnes After a performance at an air show. He wanted to show some appreciation to the skydiving community, which was still very much in its infancy. To do this, he was offering a free jump out of his privately owned B-25 Mitchell bomber, a medium bomber that saw heavy use in World War II. A free jump out of a World War II bomber what skydiver can resist that? And not just any jump. He was offering a high altitude, low opening, halo jump from 20,000 feet. So naturally, people came from across the state to take advantage of this opportunity.
Speaker 1:However, the plane had not been modified for skydiving, or really modified at all. It was not pressurized or prepared in any way and there was a fear the plane would be overloaded with as many people that showed up, bob and his co-pilot Richard Wolff made the decision to take only the 20 most experienced jumpers up. 17 of them were members of the United States Parachute Association with at least 75 jumps apiece. 7 of them had over 200 jumps, so it was a pretty experienced group and only 18 of them were jumping at 20,000 feet. After they jumped out, the plan was to go up to 30,000 feet for the last two jumpers, air Force Major Alan Homestead and Larry Hartman to jump. Larry would act as an unofficial jump master for the group of 18.
Speaker 1:Everyone on board was given a portable oxygen tank and mask. Since the oxygen system in the plane did not work and since it was unmodified, it had three sections. Two of the jumpers would be in the forward section, just behind the flight crew, and would jump from the plane through a hatch in the floor. Nine jumpers rode in the bomb bay and would jump from the bomb bay doors. The rest were in the aft section and would jump from either the waist gunner's hatch on the left side of the plane or a nearby floor hatch. These areas had hastily installed narrow benches for seating and they would have very limited views out of the windows. Once they were in the air, they would not be able to see exactly what they were jumping into when they went out into the sky. One of the jumpers who didn't go on the flight decided to hitch a ride with Ted Murphy. Ride with Ted Murphy. Ted was going to fly up to 12,000 feet in his Cessna 180 Skywagon to take pictures of the skydivers as they descended.
Speaker 1:After some initial delays and concerns over the thick cloud cover, carnes took off from Ortner Airfield around 3 pm, murphy following shortly behind him in his Cessna. Carnes took a circular route as he ascended to 20,000 feet. This plane, not designed to fly at these altitudes, was slow in the climb and it would take them nearly an hour to reach the right altitude. And with the thick cloud cover, ground visibility was zero. And since this was the 60s, they didn't have GPS or any fancy shit like that. So they had to rely on the Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center to tell him where exactly he was. Unknown to anyone at the time.
Speaker 1:During Carnes' ascent, there was a shift change, so when he called in to check his location, he got Engel Smith. Smith had just come on duty and obviously had no idea what was going on. When asked for a location update, he mistook the Cessna's position for the B-25 and gave Carnes his location as if he was in the Cessna, which put him about six miles from the jump zone. Okay so I don't know that much about radar technology, especially way back in the 60s, but how the fuck do you mistake a B-25 for a Cessna? But anyways, so now Carnes thinks he is over Ortner. He is not. He is a bit of a ways off from there.
Speaker 1:In preparation for the jump, he slows the plane from 145 miles per hour to 105, and opens the bomb bay doors where the jumpers are huddling. With the bomb bay not being pressurized and the lack of insulation, they were freezing in the back. Air temperatures at that altitude were negative 20. They had come prepared for this, wearing extra heavy clothing and boots. With the bomb bay doors now open, the plane was flooded with sunlight and noise. They could barely see, as Hartman got them up and going, jumping out of their different exits, against FAA and USPA rules about jumping into clouds, jumping out all these different exits like this. Let them fairly scattered across the sky, although two of them would be able to link up their plan to practice some freefall maneuvers before hitting the clouds was shot to shit. At 20,000 feet they had a 14,000 foot free fall before they hit the thick cloud cover. The plan was on breaking cloud cover at 4,000 feet and they would wait until 3,000 feet above the airfield before they deployed their chutes.
Speaker 1:As they dropped through the clouds and broke through, it was not the sight of the airfield that greeted them. It was water. They had dropped through the clouds right over Lake Erie, nearly four miles from shore and 12 miles from their intended drop zone. They had roughly three minutes before they hit the water. They had to act fast. They had to start getting rid of all that heavy clothing they had on, along with boots and helmets and anything else that wouldn't float or that could possibly help drag them under when they hit the water.
Speaker 1:At least one jumper deployed his chute early in the hopes of being able to drift closer to shore. Witnesses nearby on the beach saw the parachutes open and watched as the jumpers hit the water one after another in a straight line. They thought it was a stunt and a boat was going to pick them up as they plunged into the 40 degree water. They tried to use reserve chutes and helmets as flotation devices, but this didn't quite work out. One of the jumpers had worn an actual flotation device but it failed to deploy after hitting the water. Paul Potter, an off-duty Coast Guard Lieutenant at the beach near Lorain, ohio, saw the chutes deploy and ran for a telephone before the first divers hit the water. Potter notified Coast Guard Station Lorraine and then worked with civilian boaters to coordinate a rescue.
Speaker 1:Rescue efforts began within minutes. 30 boats joined in the search for the jumpers, but efforts were hampered by the cold and rough winds, and the waves were reaching five foot high in places. Up above, unaware of the tragedy unfolding below them, carnes was putting a request to send the 30,000 so the other two jumpers could go. His request was denied but he went anyways. Who was going to stop him? During the flight, carnes was able to see through a break in the cloud cover and see water below, which led him to making the remark to Wolfe that he hoped he didn't drop them over the lake. Alan Homestead and Larry Hartman would eventually jump over their intended drop zone and they would land successfully. Carnes would land the B-25 20 minutes after the first jumpers left the airplane Jumpers Rybert Coy and Bernard Johnson managed to cut away their chutes and equipment before hitting the water and being rescued.
Speaker 1:Dean Phillips and Richard Ralph, two brothers out fishing, managed to pull them out of the water and save them. A search for the others was conducted by over 100 Coast Guardsmen and involved searches on land and by boat and plane. The Army got involved to help out, adding in three more helicopters and another airplane to scan the water. Initially, all they found was the gear that had been cut away in the drop that had been cut away in the drop. As the days dragged on, hope of finding more survivors dipped as they pulled body after body out of Lake Erie's chilly water. It would take until September 4th before the last body was pulled out.
Speaker 1:Initially, some government officials made the comment that jumpers had been blown 20 miles from their target by a strong crosswind and that just sounds fucking ridiculous 20 miles, really. In the immediate aftermath, one survivor reported that the plane was in the wrong place and the pilots of both the B-25 and the Cessna said that they had been given the wrong information by air traffic control. On September 2nd the NTSB began their investigation. Norman Heaton, the head of the United States Parachute Association testified that the jumpers could not have drifted more than 16,000 feet, which meant that the bomber was at least a mile offshore at the time of the jump. Shithead Smith maintained that the bomber was six miles inland. The NTSB went on to conduct three studies. The first concluded that the jumpers could not have drifted more than two miles, putting the bomber three to four miles offshore and 11 miles from Ortner. The second reconstructed the flight path and reached a similar conclusion as to the plane's location. The third considered the locations of both planes relative to the locations they were given by air traffic control, concluding that Shithead I mean concluding that Smith mistook the Cessna for the B-25. The report went on to fault Carnes for executing a jump when he could not see the ground and the air traffic controller for giving the wrong position for the plane. It also said that the skydivers themselves, given all their experience, were not without fault for jumping under dangerous conditions. The NTSB also found that, while Carnes was certified as a pilot, he was not rated to fly a B-25 and the plane was not certified to carry passengers.
Speaker 1:After the accident, senator Mike Monroney from Oklahoma, the chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation, proposed a new law regulating skydiving by the FAA. The NTSB's chair, joseph O'Connell, presented the board's finding on September 25th at a hearing of the subcommittee. Regarding the proposed changes, david Thomas, the administrator of the FAA, testified that jumping through clouds was already outright prohibited, but officials spoke in opposition to increased regulations, saying that the current system was adequate. The bill would end up failing and would not become law, although other new rules from the Parachute Club of America would come out of this, like prohibiting any jumps within 50 miles of any body of water unless they had the proper survival gear. Rival here, robert Carnes, would also lose his pilot's license indefinitely. Both survivors and the families of the victims would go on to successfully sue the United States for wrongful death over the air traffic controller's error.
Speaker 1:The United States was found liable due to Smith's negligence. They also determined there was no negligence on the jumpers part, due to the regulations for skydiving were designed to protect anyone they might hit, not the skydiver themselves. Skydivers would later return to Lake Erie in 1968 and 1969 in honor of the victims. During these memorial jumps they tossed the wreath from the plane before parachuting into the lake, this time with all the proper gear. The B-25 was eventually sold off in 1970 to a flying club in Massachusetts. Roger Lopez, a ferry pilot, was sent out to Ohio to fly the plane back to Massachusetts and its new owners. However, when he reached the airport in Orange, massachusetts, something went wrong and the plane crashed into the ground. Lopez was killed and the plane was completely destroyed in the crash. The MTSB later determined the cause to be pilot error and that the plane was beyond Lopez's experience or abilities. Or maybe, just maybe, the damn thing was cursed.
Speaker 1:While skydiving seems terrifying for most, today is relatively safe. According to the United States Parachute Association, there was nine deaths in 2024, with over 3.8 million jumps made. The death rates have been on a steady decline since the 1970s, while there has been a significant increase in the number of jumps. The most common injury sustained while skydiving is ankle injuries from bad landings, and only 12% of USPA members report a jump requiring the use of the reserve parachute. So, with that said, the ride up is absolutely terrifying and probably most likely less safe than the actual jump, but once you're off the plane and in free fall, it's all worth it. That view is absolutely amazing and I would definitely do it again and probably still be terrified on the way up, but whatever, and that was the 1967 Lake Erie skydiving accident.
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