The wreckage of a USAAF plane that went missing during its first and last mission in the Second World War was discovered in a North African desert. In early November 1958, an oil exploration team from Britain was flying over the Libyan desert, when they unexpectedly spotted the wreckage of a plane in the middle of the desert.

A ground team was quickly dispatched to the crash site in order to investigate the wreckage. It was later revealed that it was the wreckage of a ‘B-24D Liberator’ from the Second World War, also known as the ‘Lady Be Good’. The plane flew for the first time on a bombing mission in Italy in 1943 and lost radio contact shortly after entering a sandstorm.

First and last mission

A B-17 on a bombing run over Gizo Island during the Guadalcanal Campaign.  Smoke in the background was the intended target.

On a mission

Initially, the US military did not pay any attention towards the discovery, but later they sent a team of researchers to investigate and find the remains of the crew members. Research teams scoured the area surrounding the crash site. They followed a few trails; however, they were unsuccessful in finding any trace of the crew members’ remains. The mission was called off due to equipment failure and the harsh conditions in the desert; but, fortunately, the remains of one of the crew were found in the latter part of 1960. Almost 16 years after the disappearance of ‘Lady Be Good’, search teams had a breakthrough about the doomed plane. Connecting the dots between the crash site and one crew member’s remains, the team was able to piece together the circumstances that surrounded the mysterious disappearance of ‘Lady Be Good’.
On 4th April 1943, ‘Lady Be Good’ took to the skies for the first time with its nine crew members on a bombing mission on Naples. The conditions were not favourable from the beginning, and a severe sandstorm engulfed the plane soon after it took off from Benina airstrip in Libya. Lieutenant Hatton decided to carry on with his mission despite the bad weather, which turned out to be a fatal mistake for everyone on board. Almost zero visibility and thick clouds caused the plane to drift further away from its intended target. The crew tried to make radio contact with the base, but due to some miscommunication their request for a location was not addressed.