LI airman's family seeks info on '51 crash

The question has haunted the Amsden family for decades.

What happened to 21-year-old Robert Amsden, a Roslyn High School graduate and airman, after his Air Force transport plane went down in 1951 in the North Atlantic?

Sixty years later, family members of the 53 passengers and crew lost in the crash are trying to honor their memory by seeking more information about what occurred on March 23 long ago, said Amsden's brother, Keith Amsden, 82, an Air Force retiree living in Rockledge, Fla.

A declassified 89-page Air Force report completed in September 1952 but released only last May sought to explain why the crash happened but shed no light on what had happened to Amsden and the others.

In the spring, the Amsden family put up a marker at a special area in Arlington National Cemetery for families that don't have remains to bury. Keith Amsden and other relatives of those who were lost are pushing to get an organization such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to examine the crash site for wreckage or remains. "We are doing it for all of them, all 53," Keith Amsden said. "We are trying to put this thing to bed."

Details unclear

The declassified accident report showed that the C-124 crashed "more or less" intact. A letter sent to Amsden's parents in East Williston in July 1951 said the aircraft "apparently burned and exploded." Exactly why the crash happened is still unclear. A note on one document stated "sabotage." However, an Air Force spokeswoman in the office of prisoners of war and missing service members told Newsday that records show that no criminal investigation concluded there was sabotage.

Keith Amsden said he last saw his brother on March 20, 1951, at Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, N.M., where both were assigned. Robert Amsden, a staff sergeant, told him he was going to England for seven days.

"Can I get you anything?" Keith Amsden -- who was 19 at the time -- recalled his brother asking. The two were graduates of Roslyn High School and paperboys for Newsday.

The next day, Robert Amsden boarded a C-124 Globemaster transport plane for the start of a routine flight to Lakenheath Royal Air Force Base in England. But on March 23, some 700 miles west of Ireland, the plane disappeared.

Plane sent out a Mayday

The plane's radio operator had sent out a Mayday reporting a fire in the cargo hold and said the aircraft was ditching in the Atlantic. Despite a huge air-sea search, only a few bits of burned wreckage and debris were found. No human remains were recovered.

Records releasedNewly released records show that Air Force investigators believed that a fire started on the aircraft and there may have been an explosion. The report stated that a propeller or engine in combination could have failed, causing the pilot to lose control.

The report and a summary of the accident posted on the Walker Air Force Base Museum website state that the crew of the aircraft climbed into the nine inflatable life rafts on board. At least one search aircraft spotted people in a life raft near the crash site. But when additional aircraft and vessels arrived a day or two later, only debris was found.

Captured by Soviets?

Were those survivors washed overboard and did they die in the 51-degree water with eight-foot swells? Did a passing vessel such as a Russian sub, as Keith Amsden speculates, capture the survivors in a bit of Cold War intrigue?

The question of whether the Soviet Union held missing American servicemen led to a joint U.S.-Russian Federation commission. A Pentagon official who works on the issue of missing service members and didn't want to be named said there is no "credible evidence" that members of the American military are being held in Russia. In their last report in 2005, U.S. commission officials said the search has been complex and facts elusive.

Amsden and others hope for exploration at the crash site, which is at a depth of 11,400 feet and similar to that of the Titanic, said Dave Gallo, director of special projects at the Woods Hole institute. A search is feasible, but would cost at least $1 million, he said. The crash site is about 720 miles west of Ireland and 1,200 miles east of Newfoundland.

While they lobby for action, the victims' families find ways to honor the veterans. On May 16, Keith Amsden, his wife, Rosalind, their son, Rob, and his wife, Linda, traveled to Arlington. During a poignant ceremony, complete with an Air Force honor guard, a simple stone marker with black letters was dedicated to Robert Amsden and other victims.

"I think some people need closure, and I am one of them," said Lawrence Rafferty, 60, of Illinois, who plans a similar service next year for his father, Lawrence, also lost on the flight.