The Crash of the F84 Thunderjet
by Bob Brail

     Small town life in America is usually associated with a slow paced existance where extraordinary, exciting events rarely occur. New Melle can fairly be described as a small town, but on September 14, 1962, at around 3:30 in the afternoon, something unimaginable happened which people still remember fifty-five years later.

     On Friday, September 14, 1962, thirty-five year old Captain Thomas J. Huber, a member of the 164^th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the Ohio Air National Guard, was flying from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to the Air National Guard base in Mansfield, Ohio. Huber, from Lodi, Ohio, was a World War II and Korean War veteran; more recently he had served during the Berlin Crisis in October, 1961. His unit had been released from active duty in August, 1962, but he had volunteered to serve another month. Huber was enroute with two other jets on training mission.

     Huber's aircraft was an F84 Thunderjet. The F84 was an older plane; production began in 1950's. The F84 had a maximum speed of 650 miles per hour, but the jet could reach supersonic speed by diving.

F-84 Thunderjet

     As Huber and his comrades flew over St. Charles County, Huber's F84 experienced a complete engine failure at 30,000 feet. Huber immediately radioed Lambert Field at 3:20 PM, stating his need to do an emergency landing there. Lambert authorities quickly lined a runway with fire engines, but as minutes passed, it became apparent Huber wasn't going to make it. Capt. Huber tried to restart his jet until it descended nearly five miles, to 5000 feet. He then made the decision to eject but noticed the jet was headed directly toward a farm house, so he decided to stay longer in his jet to avoid crashing into the house.

     Captain Huber finallly ejected at 2000 feet. The jet passed just above the Alvin Grapethin farm north of New Melle, streaking from the southwest to the northeast. Mrs. Grapethin looked out a window and saw the a jet passing at treetop level. Just before it crashed, the jet passed low over the livestock pens on the farm's east side, scattering cattle and hogs (several hogs were reported still missing later that day). The F84 cut a 700 foot swath through woods, finally exploding and burning in a rocky, wooded area near the Grapethin farm buildings. The jet stopped about 350 feet south of the Orf farm, leaving a crater ten feet across and two feet deep.

     By 5:30 PM, the crash site was cordonned off. That same day, Thomas Murphy, the Federal Aviation Administration inspector for the St. Louis region, flew to the crash site in an Army helicopter. That afternoon and into the evening, many area folks stopped by to see the crash site.

     Several current area residents have memories of that unusual day fifty-six years ago. Donnie Kops, at the time a ten year old fifth grader at Daniel Boone School, remembers standing with his classmates outside the building, waiting to board the bus for the ride home. Suddenly they saw the jet overhead and then, to their great surprise, they watched the pilot eject and his parachute appear. About five second later, Kops remembers hearing the boom as the jet crashed and exploded.

     Tim Almeling was a fifth grader at a Catholic school so he had arrived home from school earlier that afternoon. He and his friends, the Schellert boys, Bobby, Billy, and Fred, were shooting their bb guns in the Schellerts' pasture near a pond when the low jet went directly over them. They also witnessed the pilot's ejection and heard the explosion a few second later. Almeling remembers that the two older Schellert boys, who were both in high school, raced ahead of their younger brother and him as they ran towards the woods to investigate.

     Gene Joerling, then a junior at Francis Howell High School, and his brother Jim, a freshman, were headed for home on the school bus, near the intersection of Hopewell Road and Highway D when several kids noticed a plane trailing smoke very close to the ground. As soon as the Joerling brothers reached New Melle, they joined school friends Bobby Tuepker, Michael Heil, and Michael Berry in Tuepker's pickup truck. Using the smoke from the explosion as their guide, they headed east on Highway D, turned north on Hopewell Road, and then turned west on an unnamed gravel road. After parking the truck, they boys walked through a heavily wooded area, calling out for the pilot, who soon yelled back, “I'm over here.” At this time, they were at least two miles from the crashed jet on the other side of Dardenne Creek. Capt. Huber, whose only injury was a bruised leg, was seated on a tree stump, smoking a cigarette, with his parachute piled beside him, less than a mile from Highway D. After Huber asked where he was and the location of the nearest airport, Gene Joerling remembers that he and his friends guided Huber back to the highway, where he was found by the Missouri Highway Patrol.

     Other area men with memories of the crash are Mike Grapethin and Mark Fowler, grandsons of the Grapethins. Grapethin remembers the crash site with “jet parts all over.” The jet had torn through trees, clearing a path to the point of impact, about 250 feet from the edge of the field, just over the hill from the house. The military secured the area and soon recovered all the crash debris, or so they thought. Grapethin and Fowler both recall often finding parts of the jet at the crash over the several few years. Fowler remembers finding small parts in hayfields in the early 1980's and states that burned trees stood for several years.

     The boys' adventure would continue in the coming days. Gene Joerling, Jim Joerling, and Tim Ahmeling all remember being interviewed later by military authorities as the military attempted to understand what had happened to Huber and their F84 Thunderjet. Ahmeling remembers the question, “Was the plane listing?” and trying to answer as accurately as possible.

     And soon life returned to normal in New Melle, which is the way of small towns. However, the day of the jet crash has lived on in the memories of the folks from New Melle who saw it happen on that fall day in 1962.

SOURCES: “Airport National Guard” (ci.mansfield.oh.us); findagrave.com; Marthasville Record (digital.shsmo.org); Sandusky Register (newspaperarchive.com); St. Charles Journal (newspaperarchive.com); St. Louis Post-Dispatch (scccld.lib.mo.us/hnpstlouispostdispatch shell/index); Steubenville (OH) Herald Star (newspaperarchive.com); Thomas Huber obituary (legacy.com). Interviews: Tim Ahmeling, Mark Fowler, Mike Grapethin, Gene Joerlin, Jim Joerling, Donnie Kops.