B-17 That Landed Itself
It was a chilly November day in 1944 when an anti-aircraft crew stationed in Belgium saw a large plane coming toward them. The RAF unit recognized the plane as an American B-17, the so-called “Flying Fortress.” The sighting was strange because the landing gear was down and the plane was coming in fast. There were no landings scheduled and so the men on the ground assumed that the plane was making an emergency landing. They were correct but the reason for the emergency landing was something they never expected.
The plane landed and looked largely intact. The landing was rough and bouncy, it was clear to the men on the ground that something was wrong with the whole situation as the plane nearly clipped a wing before coming to a stop in the open field. For twenty minutes no one approached the plane waiting for the crew to come out and explain what had happened. Finally, those on the ground got restless and decided to approach the plane even as the engines continued their loud growl. When the hatch opened the silence within the plane was more deafening than the roar of the engines.
There was no crew. Not a single person was found on the plane but there was evidence that a crew had been on the plane recently. There were half-eaten candy bars and a navigator’s codebook with the colors of the day, which suggested that a crew had been on board that day. Even more mysterious were the neatly packed parachutes, enough for an entire crew completely untouched. Whatever had happened, it looked at first that the crew had completely vanished and the plane had just landed itself.
While at first it seemed like a bizarre ghost story and spread throughout the military as such, the truth is much simpler. The plane malfunctioned and took a hit, which made the plane unable to fly. The crew tossed what they could to lighten the load and then bailed out of the plane. As the B-17 dipped down toward Brussels, the problem with the engines seemed to resolve itself and the B-17 flew itself. However, without all of its engines functioning it was not able to stay in the air and performed the landing that was witnessed by the RAF crew.