after running low on fuel. The new company immediately sold four RB-1 aircraft, which paid for the WAA contract. 10 January The first prototype Douglas XSB2D-1, BuNo 03551, had an engine fire 1,000 feet over Sunnyvale, California. The aircraft crashed in an orchard and sustained extensive damage, but the crew of two were uninjured. 18 January A Dornier Do 335A-12 Pfeil (Arrow AM223, ex-DP+UB, wrk nr 240112), a twin-piston-engine "push-pull" aircraft out of RAE Farnborough, had a rear-engine fire in flight which severed the control runs. It crashed into the Cove School in Cove, Hampshire, killing two people (according to one source) and injuring six more on the ground. According to another source, pilot Group Captain A. F. Hards DSO was killed. 28 January The first prototype Short Shetland I (DX166), the largest British-built flying boat, burned at its mooring from a galley fire before flight testing was completed. 1 March Two Silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortresses were written off in a taxi accident at Kirtland Army Air Field in New Mexico. The pilot of Boeing B-29-60-MO Superfortress 44-86473 of the 509th Composite Group assigned to Roswell AAF in New Mexico attempted to taxi without energizing the hydraulic brake system and could not stop the bomber, which collided with Boeing B-29-36-MO 44-27296 "Some Punkins" (also of the 509th). "Some Punkins" was destroyed in August 1946 fire-fighting training. The other plane was dropped from inventory in April 1946 after salvage. 7 March Silverplate Boeing B-29-30-MO Superfortress 42-65387 from Kirtland Army Air Field in New Mexico, on a practice mission to the Los Lunas bombing range, released a 10,150-pound Fat Man before it disintegrated for unknown reasons and spun in from 32,000 feet. Ten crew members died, and wreckage was strewn up to 16 miles from the crash site. The B-29 which dropped the weapon in Operation Crossroads test Able on 1 July 1946 was named "Dave's Dream" for bombardier Dave Semple, who was killed in this accident. 17 March A Republic of China Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain crashed into hills near Nanjing in bad weather, killing all 20 on board (including Lt. Gen. Dai Li [also known as Tai Li], head of Chiang Kai-shek's Military Intelligence Service). According to a CIA website, "Dai Li was dead, but many refused to believe it. Some blamed the crash on communist sabotage, others on a bomb planted by OSS. The most common rumor was