Echoes Forward

Did you know a jet plane crashed in Denton? Me neither. 

The year was 1960. Elvis Presely and Connie Frances were dominating the musical charts. Tensions in Vietnam were rising. Non-violent forms of protest like sit-ins were taking hold across the American south. And just days before the first patent of a laser in the United States was granted, a plane crashed into a Denton home, killing its occupants.

The plane was a B-57 jet bomber. The day was Monday, March 21. The pilot, who was the lone occupant of the jet, was Air Force Captain William F. Smith. According to newspaper coverage, the plane could be seen from the ground in obvious distress until it crashed into a home near Lockerman, which was an all-Black campus at the time, around 2:30 p.m., .

Smith apparently waited until the last second to eject himself from the plane. He parachuted down near Camp Road, sustaining various painful but non-life-threatening injuries. Unfortunately, Jesse Brown and her two grandchildren, six year old Laverne and four year old Caren, were in the home when the plane struck and were killed. Jesse’s husband, Willard Brown Sr., was at work. The children belonged to the Browns’ son, Thomas. The newspaper report said “there was nothing but a hole where the house stood.” The neighboring house, which was owned by John Hammond, caught fire, but the local fire company was able to put it out before the damage was able to spread to the inside.

Just about 100 feet away, some of the children in a newly built wing of the Lockerman school were injured by flying glass and debris. The crash caused estimated damages in excess of $5,000, about $54,750 today.

The plane was “on an acceptance check out of the Glenn L. Martin Plant” in Middle River, Maryland. A representative of the company said that this particular jet was one of two being evaluated by the Air Force to see if it was acceptable for military service after being recently modified.

Thankfully, the Denton Volunteer Fire Company was included in the bystanders who had seen that the plane was bound to go down, and they were able to be on the scene relatively immediately after the crash and accompanying explosion. The newspaper reported that hundreds of people gathered at the site following the tragedy.

A written account of the event, which you can find at the Denton library, was submitted from former Lockerman school student who was in the school at the time, Bill Thompson, “I remember being in a classroom on that day and hearing a loud explosion outside,” Thompson said, “I looked out the window and saw a cloud in the sky and a man coming down in a parachute…I went over to the crash site after school was let out and recall that the windows were smashed in the school across the street, but the venetian blinds had prevented injuries inside.”