Sault Daily Star Article - Oct. 30, 1968

Sault Daily Star, October 30, 1968

Do aircraft parts belong to lost F-89?

It is possible aircraft parts discovered Tuesday by two Cozen's Cove area prospectors could the15-year-old wreckage on an F-89 Scorpion jet interceptor.

Provincial Police today identified the tail section taken from aircraft parts discovered Tuesday as military. The remnant is made of heavier metal than normally used in aircraft, an OPP spokesman said. The prospectors found the parts near Cozens Cove, 70 miles north of here.

United States Air Force personnel in November 1953 lost contact with the ill-fated Scorpion about 160 miles north of the Kincheloe air base during a routine investigation of a UFO which later turned out to be a Canadian Air FForce C-47.

Sometime later, Algoma Central Railway workers reported hearing a crash that could have been caused by the F-89, according to Sault Star files. The railway workers neard the sound only about 100 miles from the Sault.

This week, two prospectors stumbled over the aircraft parts in the bush around the Cozens Cove, Alona Bay area.

The heavier than usual metal could have been from a jet aircraft, a spokesman from the Sault federal airport said earlier this afternoon. "Some parts are (heavier) because of the heat intensity."

Reports of the 1953 air mystery indicate the Scorpion was last recorded at an altitude of 8,000 feet. If the plane exploded, parts could scatter for miles.

Searchers combed the area from Whitefish Point up around the north shore of Lake Superior, but turned up no sign of the F-89.

The possibility that the parts discovered by the two prospectors could have been from air-targets used eight or 10 years ago by Canadian ground forces or by the USAF seems unlikely although police are checking this angle.

Both a spokesman at Kincheloe and a Canadian militia spokesman who has experience with the air-targets this morning felt the description of the aircraft parts and the location where they were found was poor indication they were target pieces.

A third possibility that this could be the remains of a Cessna 170 lost on the north shore of Superior in 1964 has cropped up, but the craft was listed as private.