Army Douglas C-54D-5-DC Skymaster courier plane 42-72553 (c/n 10658) of the 6th Troop Carrier Squadron, 317th Troop Carrier Group, 5th Air Force, with 33 passengers and eight crew, crashed into a mountain southwest of Tokyo. An Army announcement said that it had not been determined whether there were any survivors. A revised count reported that 40 were aboard the C-54: 28 enlisted, eight officers, and four civilians; all were killed in the crash, and reportedly burned beyond recognition. The flight, inbound from Korea, had apparently exploded as it approached Tachikawa Airfield for a landing. Boeing F-13A Superfortress 45-21848 (c/n 13742) of the 46th Reconnaissance Squadron crashed shortly after take-off from Ladd Field in Alaska, coming down three miles east of Fairbanks, Alaska. Three crew were reported missing, and nine others were injured. 30 May Twelve members of the Colombian National Army Aviation were injured in the crash-landing of their transport at Bogotá, after it collided in mid-air with a buzzard. Douglas C-47 Skytrain, Fuerza Aérea Colombiana FAC-661, is destroyed by fire after landing. 4 June A U.S. Marine Corps Vought F4U-4 Corsair crashed in the surf at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina during a VFW airshow; pilot Lt. Gene Dial of MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, walked about 15 feet to shore unhurt. Dial, with years of service, said that he had crashed once before during a carrier take-off. 14 June Boeing B-29A-70-BN Superfortress 44-62228 of the 64th Bombardment Squadron, 43rd Bombardment Group, off-course in stormy weather, crashed into the granite face of Hawks Mountain a few hundred feet below its 2,300-foot crest near Springfield, Vermont just before midnight, killing all eleven crew. The bomber, based at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona, had refueled Pittsburgh and was bound for Bedford, Massachusetts when it apparently became lost. Local residents reported hearing it circle over Springfield and nearby Perkinsville shortly before impact, and seeing it blink its lights at an altitude of 1,000 feet or less. 18 June World War II ace Pierce McKennon (12 aerial victories and 9.83 ground victories) was killed in a training accident with a student pilot in AT-6D-NT 44-81417 of the 2532d AAF Base Unit, Randolph Field, Texas, when the trainer crashed two miles west of Marion, Texas. 22 June Martin XB-48 45-59585 made its first flight (a 37-minute, 73-mile hop from Martin's Baltimore, Maryland plant to NAS Patuxent River), but blew all four tires on its fore-and-aft-mounted