1954 Grouse Mountain USAF F86 Crash

Second Lt. Lamar J. Barlow
pilot of F-86 which crashed on Grouse Mountain.,
North Vancouver, BC

Sources: Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province and Tacoma News Tribune newspaper archives

On February 12, 1954, a USAF pilot flying an F86 Sabre crashed his jet into the side of Grouse Mountain above North Vancouver, British Columbia. The pilot had earlier departed from his home base at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington. The F86, which was fully armed with 24 rockets, was reported as taking off on a routine instrument training flight at 10:25 AM. The first word of trouble came from pilot 2^nd Lt. Lamar Barlow when he repeated calls of "May Day 2" on the airmen's international distress signal. The pilot reported his compass had failed and that he himself was lost. At 12:06 PM radar operators at Blaine or McChord located the pilot as flying 60 miles north of Vancouver. By 12:15 PM the radar operators had directed the pilot to a position about 15 miles north of Vancouver. Because the plane was by this time very low on fuel, the pilot requested to make an emergency landing. The Sea Island Airport in Vancouver was cleared but radio contact with the pilot was lost before he was given clearance to land.

The weather was overcast and raining so only one witness saw the plane before it crashed. Robin McPherson, the six year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wallace McPherson of 3151 Del Rio Drive in North Vancouver was on her way home from school for lunch, when she the fast flying jet break through the cloud ceiling. At the time she was walking on Queens near the foot of Del Rio. The plane zoomed up and went into the trees on the mountain. She never heard the sound of the crash.

The last radio transmission from the pilot was that he was experiencing total instrument failure. The jet was flying in a northerly direction with a estimated velocity exceeding 760 mph when it plowed into the trees and mountain at the 2700 foot elevation, near a cabin located a few hundred feet from the ski chair lift. A 1000 foot swath was cut through the trees and wreckage was strewn over a wide area. The crash killed the pilot who was still strapped in his seat.

F-86 Takes off from McChord AFB, WA (December 1953)
Photo supplied by F-86 historian Duncan Curtis (see f-86.tripod.com)

F-86D 465th FIS, McChord AFB
Lamar's F-86D was Ser. No. 51-2987
Photo supplied by Duncan Curtis

Two days later, newspapers reported that the fault of the crash was thought to be a "radar ghost". Major Craig Fairburn, head of a twelve man USAF investigation team, said radar operators probably mistook the ghost or echo for Barlow's jet. It was speculated the pilot was probably responding with instructions based on the position of the radar echo when he plowed into the mountain.

The crash site was roped off and protected by armed guards until most of the 24 rockets could be retrieved.

After reading these reports, I had several questions:

Why was the pilot flying 60 miles north of Vancouver when he was lost? Logically, USAF radar operators at the pilot's home field would have been following his flight. Was it normal for USAF pilots to fly far into Canadian territory during a routine training mission? Wouldn't the pilot have multiple redundant instruments to check to make sure he was flying on a correct flight path? Wouldn't the radar station have detected that the pilot had left US air space and was far off his intended flight path, long before he was in danger of running out of fuel for his return flight to home base?

Why was the jet armed with 24 rockets on an instrument training mission? The fact that the jet was armed implies to me that it was either on an air defense mission or a weapons training mission of some sort.

It is of some peculiarity that the plane experienced first a compass failure followed later by total instrument failure. It is also a quite peculiar coincidence that a phantom "radar echo" was sited as a contributing cause to the crash. At this time, UFOs were often explained as "phantom radar echos" by the US Air Force. Encounters between UFOs and aircraft often leads to instrument malfunctions and failures.

It seems apparent to me that one possibility that might explain the incident would be that the aircraft was on a UFO intercept mission. If so, it can be understood that the Air Force would by its own regulations be required to cover up the purpose of the mission.

This would explain why the aircraft was armed. This might also explain why the aircraft penetrated far into Canadian air space during a pursuit. This might also explain multiple instrument failures (possibly caused my proximity of the aircraft to a strong electo-magnetic field) and the "radar ghost" (the real radar return from the bogie).

One mystery is that the real F86 radar return should have been showing an IFF identification code. This should make it easy for the radar operator to distinguish the F86 from a real ghost echo or UFO, unless the IFF signal transmission had also malfunctioned.

Similarly, it is conceivable that the radar operators lost contact with the pilot due to temporary radio malfunctions although no such malfunctions were mentioned. Which makes more sense? The radar operators ignored the jet flying off into Canadian airspace until the pilot suddenly realizes he has only 30 minutes of fuel and has no clue about his position OR the radar operators guided the pilot in pursuit of a UFO into Canadian air space, beyond the farthest distance to return to base thinking the pilot would be able to land safely at Vancouver if he ran low on fuel – the only problem arising when the pilot experienced multiple instrument failures as he was being guided into Sea Island Airport in Vancouver for his emergency landing.

One intriguing detail in the news reports was that most of the 24 rockets were recovered but that a few were still missing. Is it possible that the pilot had fired these missing rockets at a target, which had then pursued the jet during its final moments in the air? Is this why the jet was flying at the speed of sound when all logic suggests it should have been flying at a low speed for its emergency landing approach?

Map of Approximate F-86 Flight Path

Newspaper Articles from the F86 Crash