Gabel, Keith Arlen 1937-1971

GABEL, ADAMS, ATKINSON, HERMAN, DOWN

Posted By: Bruce Atkinson (email)
Date: 11/21/2007 at 16:14:56

Survivor of Crash Fatal to 50 Says Airliner Hit F4
LOSANGELES, CALIF, (AP) – The radar intercept officer who is the sole survivor of a collision between two planes that killed 50 persons says the commercial airliner hit the Marine Corps craft he was aboard.
“After impact – the airliner hit us – we tumbled violently four or five times,” 1st Lt. Christopher Schiess, 24, of Salem, Ore., told a news conference Monday. He did not elaborate.
Schiess parachuted from the F4 Phantom jet Sunday night after the collision with a Hughes Air West DC9 jet.
The twin-engine Air West jet, carrying 44 passengers and a crew of five, exploded and burned in a dive from 12,00 feet after the collision.
The wreckage, at the bottom of a 2,000-foot-deep gorge, yielded the bodies of 22 persons Monday, three of them children.
The body of the F4 pilot, whose name was not disclosed, was found in the fighter plane, which crashed a mile away.
…
In the California crash the commercial plane had taken off from Los Angeles International Airport for a nonstop flight to Salt Lake City, Utah. All 49 persons aboard were believed killed.
The military craft was en route from Fallon Naval Air Station near Reno, Nev., to the El Toro Marine Air Station in California. The phantom carried two men. One parachuted and survived.
Rescuers were hampered Monday by a 2,000-foot cliff in trying to reach the wreckage in a rocky gorge in the Van Tassel Canyon area of the Los Angeles National Forest.
The crashes were the worst civilian aircraft disasters on record in each state.
[One of the passengers on the Air West plane was Keith Arlen Gabel who was traveling on business.]
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California paper (California) of 06/??/1971.

Keith Gabel
Memorial services were held Saturday, June 19, at Grace United Methodist church in Long Beach, Calif., for Keith A. Gabel, formerly of Merrill.
Keith was killed in the mid-air collision Sunday, June 6, of a commercial airliner and a military jet over Duarte, Calif.
Keith's wife Glenda and daughters Julie and Tamara reside in Long Beach. His mother, Mrs. Janet Gabel, lives in Fountain Valley, Calif.
His sister, Mrs. James (Janice) Down presently resides in Seattle, Wash. Mrs. V. G. Adams of Akron is his grandmother.
He is the son of the late Cloyd Gabel.
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LeMars Daily Sentinel (LeMars, Plymouth County, Iowa) of 06/??/1971.

Keith Gabel Death
Keith Gabel, 33, who was killed in the plane accident in California was the son of the late Cloyd Gabel and the Nephew of Mrs. Lester Herman and Mrs. M. O. Atkinson. He grew up on a farm west of Merrill in Johnson township.
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LeMars Daily Sentinel (LeMars, Plymouth County, Iowa) of 06 June 1971.

Plymouth Obituaries maintained by Linda Ziemann.
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