Terrifying footage captures fatal plane crash and pilot's final words from inside cockpit
Harrowing footage taken from the pilot's cockpit shows how a jet suddenly went down more than 40 years ago.
The sudden disappearance of an airplane, dubbed the 'bird dog' jet for its use in observation for the US military, remained a mystery for three years.
According to archived reports, the two-seater Cessna L-19E jet departed from Granby with a passenger to explore the scenic mountains of Colorado on August 10, 1984, but never made it to its destination at Jefferson County Airport.
It was believed the plane had crashed into the sprawling Arapaho National Forest in Tabernash and had lost signal from its transmitter in doing so, making it impossible for the search party to locate the missing jet and the two people on board.
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The wreckage was then discovered by a 14-year-old hiker three years later on August 23, 1987, from the slope of tree-covered ridge.
The bodies of two men - the pilot, James Jeb Caddell, 38, who was an oilman from Dallas, and his assistant, Ronald Hugh Wilmond, 36, of Ardmore, Oklahoma - were found among the wreckage, UPI reported in 1987.
However, a VHS camcorder tape was also found, which documents the pair's harrowing final moments before the plane came crashing down.
The damaged tape, which was found hanging from tree branches and miraculously repaired, shows most of their journey had been going smoothly - until the pilot suddenly turned and the jet plummeted to the ground.
The last words the pilot shouts out before the tragic end can also be heard, with him appearing to have said: "Damn, hang on Ronnie!"
The video cuts to black after a sharp thudding sound.
According to a pilot and aviation writer, Sylvia Wrigley, who documents crashes on her Fear of Landing site, found accident reports and crash documents which revealed what had happened.
The reports claimed the jet's altitude had decreased when it crashed at the 10,200-ft level, with the terrain 'dominating the view' from the window.
A 'stall warning horn' could be heard three times during the pilot's 'moderately steep turn to the right', which prompted the aircraft to stall, flip upside down and fall into the trees.
The reports indicate it went into a the 'stall/spin syndrome', causing it to flip onto its back and 'plunge straight down through the trees'.
"But not before capturing the pilot's last mournful cry to his friend in the back seat, 'Damn, hang on Ronnie!'", the report adds.
Wrigley explained in her theory: "The pilot continued to fly into rising terrain until he was boxed in. He saw the ski slopes which are almost certainly on the leeward side of the mountain: mountain flyers know these can produce a severe downdraft and are trained not to fly straight into them.
"The pilot presumably panicked because he then compounded his worsening situation with the steep turn to the right. The plane lost lift and the stall warners sounded."
The author continued: "The high density altitude, flying over Colorado mountains in August, meant that in the turn, the plane was as high as it was capable of flying and was no longer able to climb at speed."
"When the mountains took over the horizon, he must have realised he was boxed in. And then that turn … I wanted to scream," she concluded. "Such a damn shame."
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