Marine lieutenant flying a Hellcat pursuit plane was missing in the Mojave desert [sic] since Sunday. Daily searches by Army, Navy and Marine planes have yielded no trace of the missing ship or its pilot, First Lt. Herbert L. Libbey of Tomaston, [sic] Maine. Lieutenant Libbey left Las Vegas, Nev., at 4:15 p.m. Sunday en route to the Marine Corps air base at Mojave. He was last seen flying over Searles lake [sic], near Trona. The country between Searles lake and Mojave is sparsely inhabited and includes large tracts not reached by roads or trails. Persons with any clues to the whereabouts of the plane or pilot have been asked to telephone Mojave 140 collect; or Franklin 7321 at San Diego. The military search for Lieutenant Libbey has been carried out over a constantly-widening territory, much of it far off of the supposed line of flight. The Navy public information office of the eleventh naval district at San Diego indicated that points as far distant as the Inyo and Colorado deserts and various desert mountain ranges were being searched. No ground hunt has been made." Lt. Libbey had flown F6Fs with VMF-124 from F6F-5 BuNo 71033 of VMF-255's wreck was found 13 June 1957. 1st Lt. Herbert Lee Libbey was killed when he crashed 20 miles north of Wildrose Ranger Station in the Panamint mountains. 7 September "San Diego, Sept. 7, (UP) - A stunting naval fighter plane today struck a power line, crashed through a garage and slashed off a corner of a house in the east San Diego district, police reported. The pilot was killed instantly." 9 September Consolidated B-32-20-CF Dominator 42-108532 ("Hobo Queen II") was damaged when the nose wheel accidentally retracted on the ground at Yontan Airfield, Okinawa. Two days later, a hoist lifting the B-32 dropped it twice. Since the war had ended, it was not repaired but was disassembled at the airfield. 12 September On the first flight of Northrop XP-79B 43-52437 out of Muroc Army Air Base in California, the aircraft behaved normally for about 15 minutes; at about 7,000 feet, it began a slow roll from which it failed to recover. Pilot Harry Crosby bailed out at 2,000 feet, but was struck by the revolving aircraft and his chute did not deploy. The largely-magnesium airframe was consumed by fire after hitting the desert floor. 1st Lt. Robert J. Anspach attempted to ferry