This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Death Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/JW.2ADE/8110 Message Board Post: Article Assists Inyo Sheriff In Identification On Wednesday afternoon we had a visit from C. M. Howard, Sheriff of Inyo County, Independence, California, who was seeking information on an airplane wreck that happened in August or September of 1945. The only clue to possible time of the crash was an August 1945 date on the chute pack as wreckage was scattered for several hundred yards. Looking in the files of Desert News for 1945, we found a story of a lost Navy plane in or around Trona, California which presumably was never found until June12, 1957. This article supplied the missing information needed by the Sheriff to complete identification. Prospector Thad Green, of Immigrant Canyon, which is in the Death Valley National Monument discovered the wreckage while prospecting the Panamint Mountains on June 12. He notified the Sheriff who in turn' called Air Search and Rescue. On Thursday, June 13, Hamiiton Air Force Base asked the Sheriff to go to the scene and check it out. Next day Sheriff Howard and a party went into the rugged country and found parts of a skelton (sic) and scattered wreckage. Reporting his find back to Hamilton Air Force Base. On Thursday, June 20, a party from NOTS is going in with the Sheriff to search for further identification. In the opinion of Sheriff Howard, the pilot died instantly in the crash. Our story in the issue of Sept. 27, 1945, stated that the lost plane was piloted by First Lt. Herbert L. Libbey, of Tomaston,. Maine, who was on a flight from Las Vegas to Mojave. Posted by East Kern Genealogical Society Courtesy of Mojave Desert News California City, Kern, CA Published: 20 Jun 1957