'Just One of Those Things'

0N MAY 4, 1949, Air Force 2nd Lt. Andrew Wallace took off from Mitchel Field on a routine training flight. But as his F-82 Twin Mustang interceptor rose from the runway, it failed to gain sufficient speed to clear a fence. Wallace pulled up the plane's nose, but the plane stalled and dove onto Fulton Avenue in Hempstead, crashing into a partially built house. A piece of propeller hit another house on Duncan Road.

As the plane burst into flames, Wallace managed to scramble out of the cockpit. He grabbed a brick and shattered the Plexiglas canopy to rescue his radar observer, 1st Lt. Bryan Jolley, who was trapped. Wallace was treated at a hospital and released; Jolley was hospitalized with burns. The crash was the second in 10 days for Wallace. "Just one of those things," he said shortly after the second crash. "Or two of them."