Squadron, Elmendorf AFB, on mud flats 20 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska. Kerhove scrambled free, despite injuries, before the fighter exploded and burned. A helicopter crew monitoring his distress call went to the scene and braved exploding .50 caliber ammunition in the burning Mustang to pick up the pilot, who was lying on the ground with shock and superficial cuts 300 feet from the plane. "Kerhove was in the 183rd hospital at Fort Richardson here in less than 30 minutes." 3 May The second Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak (BuNo 37971, NACA 141) crashed on takeoff on its 20th flight for NACA (its 46th total takeoff) at Edwards AFB in California due to compressor disintegration which cut control runs in the fuselage, killing NACA pilot Howard C. Lilly. Lilly, the first NACA pilot to die on duty, was the first pilot who had flown at supersonic speed to be killed. His parents lived in Beckley, West Virginia. A Boeing B-29 Superfortress of the 301st Bombardment Group crashed shortly after takeoff at night from Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base. One crewman was burned to death, and two were seriously injured. 4 May A U.S. Navy aviator was killed when his target-towing Grumman F6F Hellcat crashed offshore at Oahu, Hawaii, during gunnery practice. The pilot's name was withheld, pending notification of his family. 6 May Two US Air Force North American P-51 Mustangs disappeared and were found on 8 May 90 miles north of Fairbanks, where they had crash-landed. Lts. Grady Morris of Jacksonville, Florida and Garnett D. Page of Decatur, Alabama were uninjured. The U.S. Navy completed the first carrier qualifications of a jet-equipped squadron when VF-17A flew aboard and launched McDonnell FH-1 Phantoms from the USS Saipan, operating off Block Island, Rhode Island. VF-17A squadron commander Ralph A. Fuoss of Altoona, Pennsylvania, plunged into the water 2,000 feet short of the runway at Naval Air Station Quonset Point as he led his flight in for a routine landing. Fuoss' body and the wreckage of his plane were recovered on 9 May. An investigation began to determine whether the crash was the result of mechanical failure or a mid-air collision. "His wing man, Lt. John Sullivan of Dorchester, Mass., reported after landing safely that part of the tail surface of Fuoss' plane had struck his wing." 9 May Routine radio traffic from a U.S. Navy amphibious patrol bomber between Puerto Rico and Florida was last