Airmen Remembered

The 45th Space Wing at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., held a ceremony on Oct. 23 to dedicate a memorial on the base to the 13 airmen who died in a C-130 crash in May 1962 in Kenya while supporting NASA’s Mercury space program. “With today’s dedication, we will ensure that the memory of 13 brave airmen will endure,” said Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, who presided over the event. The 13 airmen, assigned to Cape Canaveral’s 40th Troop Carrier and 317th Consolidated Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, were in Africa preparing an emergency recovery site for Mercury’s second orbital mission. They died when their C-130 crashed into a mountainside near Nairobi. “How fitting that so many of our families are getting some sort of closure from this beautiful ceremony,” said Elizabeth Stuart, whose father, Capt. John Stuart, was co-pilot of the C-130. (Cape Canaveral report by Christopher Calkins)