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From: Bomberguy
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  • This is a "chemical" video. =p

  • dam, that clip at 2:15 is...I wonder what the guy in the 3rd plane was thinking that made it away from that, somethin like "O shit did they get shot down!? Fuck im outta here, I didn't sign up for this" & the guy in the plane flying straight getting clipped by mr.stunt puller's tail. "O YOU SON! YOU FUCKEN piece of shit! you at least better die too you, you...FUCK!!!

  • This video went viral on Dushanbe

  • i used to overhaul propellers for tall-mantz years ago and heard a few stories from one of the fellows there. i can assure you he was a well-liked man, a highly-respected pilot, and his spirit lives on. i really wish i could have met the gentleman. rob (san diego propeller)

  • snafu

  • If this had happened recently, they would have banned airplanes from movies.

    Don't think so? Read up on the death of Vic Morrow.

  • Captain Baluu!! 1:55

  • What makes me know his seat belt wasn't fastened was the information told to me direct from Jim Thompson, a pilot who worked for Paul and Frank. I worked with Jim and did some flying with him long time ago. I knew Frank well enough to have sat in on a few conversations when I was a kid learning to fly. Paul had been drinking, he did not have his seat belt fastened, structual problems may of occured and the engine slapped him in the head.. It wasn't just one thing alone that caused his death.

  • He was a human being and due to personal issues became careless and it caught up to him. Ive seen it a hundred times too, happened to Art Scholl, Skip Volk, Frank Tallman Scud running in the mountains, non of the tricks or stunts, or situations give a shit how good you are or how many hours you have or how great you may appear to your fans. Complacency eventually will do you in.

  • Wow, "Flight of the Phoenix" accident" I've seen that movie several times though out the years and never knew this.

  • Slow motion vids of a stunt man's death is hardly entertaining and it's certainly not a memorial. Just plain poor taste.

  • Also notice that he did not have his seat belt on.

  • @lacunadoug - what makes you think his seat belt wasn't fastened? Nothing in the film to indicate that.

  • alcohol??

    maybe not, as when the assessment was made no allowance was made for blood ethanol factor which may occur after death

  • a tough way to earn a living.

  • One of the best effing Hollywood Stunt pilots EVER BORN - and he died because the engine came back on him. The cause? The gear striking a small turf grass sand-clump. What a loss. Mantz was BORN in a NEST, he was that good. They were just about to close out shooting for the day and this was the last take of the shot they wanted....

  • Comment removed

  • Once the tail broke in half it threw off the center of gravity and caused it to flip.

  • at 58 seconds you see the plane break in two behind the fuselage. not pilot error but construction fault. SAD to loose such a great adventurer

  • @rothwellss Not true. Watch at the end at 2:36. He hit with the wheels hard BEFORE it broke in two. It was his fault. Not to mention it was later discovered he was flying under the influence of alcohol. His luck ran out.

  • That wasn't a pilot error crash... it was a structural failure. That plane would have never touched the ground if Mantz didn't want it to. All he did was touch the wheels on the ground for a little dust and drama, but the claptrap fuselage broke in half. At that point there was no hope of control or recovery.

  • @mnpd007 yeah but he hits the ground with enough rate of descent and airspeed he bounced back up... sure it's a weak airframe but that was a known quantity, not the kind of machine to be hot dogging like that in. It's interesting to note that part about alcohol consumption, seems like maybe he forgot for a moment the limitations of what he was flying? All in all a shame but as the cliche goes, he died doing what he loved. Better than rotting away in an old folks home!

  • @mnpd007 "That plane would have never touched the ground if Mantz didn't want it to" Logic failure

  • ironie can be a terrible thing...

  • I have the movie, I did not know about that accident.

  • @Alexvideoclip There is a dedication to Mr. Mantz at the end of the movie.

  • Watch that rear fuselage come apart just before the plane noses over. If that had stayed intact, the weight might have kept the nose down. Then the only thing that would have been wrecked was the airplane, not the pilot.

  • WOW, I had no idea they caught this on film, I'd read that hadn't. I had no idea the film of the crash existed until now.

  • @Willysmb44 that's why there is YOUTUBE!

  • lol...Yup! Graveyards are full of these guys that think their not mortal.

  • RIP Paul Mantz...he was my favorite pilot.

  • He actually was not Amelia Earhart's copilot. My mom was.

  • he could fly them AND CRASH THEM!!

  • Holy shit.  I never knew they had this on film.

  • @stuntmanmike37 Why would you think they would not have this on film when the whole event was to make runs in front of the camera?....just sayin

  • @Channel58 I had just assumed it happened during a practice flight. I had never read that it was caught on film.

  • Shapiro and Mack for personal injury, dui, and criminal defense representation.

  • Back in the day Hollywood had to have people with balls to do their stunts. Now with computer generated crap, no balls necessary. Now THAT'S Hollywood.

    I need to watch that movie again, this time knowing Paul Mantz was flying.

  • well it was an old piece of shit plane built from other pieces of shit... luckily these days (most) filmmakers don't have such a dangerously complacent attitude towards stuff like this

  • I don't see how he "instantly" died from that crash,wasn't very powerful.

  • @J0P0Productions

    So you are retarded?

  • Comment removed

  • @J0P0Productions it might not look that bad....

    but it's bad enough to crack your head wide open

    hitting anything like metal.

    i dont suggest u try it.

  • @J0P0Productions you arnt seriouse

  • 727,298 people just watched someone die

  • @ItsThatScienceKid now the number is 752,277

  • You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

  • You'd think they would spend more than a fiver building that plane...Maybe the tail was selotaped on?

  • oh man what a tragedy RIP pallbearers

  • rushed construction, poor design, great pilot, drunk pilot

  • Certainly appears that the plane was too tail-heavy. Very dangerous.....even in RC flying.

  • did not know that ,,rip,, thanks fur the post ...Al

  • First time that I have seen this video. At one time I had heard that Paul was somehow to blame for this accident. From this video is seems clear to me that it is a structual issue when the boom breaks in two just aft of the wing, causing the weight of the engine to to immediately dive the nose into the ground. There is way to recovery from that.

  • @cemx86 Ironically, if the plane had actually been made out of a Flying Boxcar boom (as per the book and movie), I should think it would have been far less likely to snap in two from a hard landing.

  • wlb50...that is still my favorite movie..Jim Backus had too many "old fashions"...lol

  • @2c1496 " what could happen to an Old Fashion?"

  • Watch It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad world for some of his best stunt flying

  • all aboard the fail plane!

  • I always wondered what happened to him . The movie was very good. The WWII pilots had balls, some even smoked cigarettes in their cockpits and got drunk when they were on the ground (if they damn well wanted to). So go jump in the lake smart asses. Grow some balls you pansey asses. You wouldn't know a structural failure if it bit you on the ass. :)

  • Ouch! I felt that.

  • the back gave away, then the rest of it was just that it was unstable.

  • @hwagner81 they never say that about someone that dies of hiv. they love to love

  • Structural failure of the rear fuselage. The aircraft wasn't designed to resist a heavy landing it seems

  • I have two comments

    1: A pedantic one for the news crew really, that wasn't a cartwheel.

    2: It's kind of ironic that Paul Mantz was a bit drunk and that this contributed to the accident, considering that Richard Attenborough in the film also liked to drink, which had also impaired his abilities.

  • @cardiffmc I spotted that too - still, easier (and often cheaper!) to blame the pilot!....

  • my grandfather was there !!

  • If you read the story from Mantz business partner you will see that the Phoenix was crudely adjusted for flight over and over again. The tail was weighted inside twice to compensate for the nose heavy attitude. The impact caused the weak fuselage to break becuase of the weighted tail. Mantz was in on the entire construction of the Phoenix. As with all pilots he signed of on it before he took off. He flew a very dangerous airplane. With his tremendous experience he should have known better.

  • Will have to verify but I read somehwere that Mantz was a heavy drinker at the time of this incident and that alcohol had something to do with it. Not really sure if the F.A.A. would have done toxicology in the 1960's. Kind of doubt it.

  • Mantz made a poor decision. It cost him his life.

  • not clear abut some of thedetails here; obviously something is haywire with the scheme since no plane is shown landing in the movie: I always figured something went really wrong there otherwise Aldrich would have shown the plane touching down, instead it just vanishes over the hill. Yet here it seems that the plane that crashed was a test one, so what then? Nobody could fly the other one, deciding it was too dangerous? Anybody know all the details of the movie mishap? Fine fine filmanyway

  • jimmy stewart was no stick

  • @jonbryn4 An early interest in flying led Stewart to gain his Private Pilot certificate in 1935 and Commercial Pilot certificate in 1938. He often flew cross-country to visit his parents in Pennsylvania, navigating by the railroad tracks. Nearly two years before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Stewart had accumulated over 400 hours of flying time.

  • @letzteschlact2 In 1944, he twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions in combat flying B24 Liberators (an extremely dangerous aircraft to fly). Before the war ended, he was promoted to colonel, one of very few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years. (wiki and history)

  • would not have happened if really a German built the plane (as the film´s story is)

  • OMG i didnt know they had film of the accident,, so horrible thing to happen.

  • As always BomberGuy's stuff is great.

    The "Boston" bomber in New Guinea looks more like a Marauder: the fuselage is more cylindrical than a Boston, and has a tail gun position which the Boston lacked.

  • Os pilotos eram feras. Que imagens!

  • We also call the letter Z a zed, a skedual a shedual.

  • I love how the British pronounce the word "Al-oo-miny-um!" We American's don't carry the same Joie de vivre in our pronounciations as the British do, tally ho and all that. As a matter of fact, I think I shall pronounce aluminum "aloominyum" from this day forth, or at least for a week or two anyway. And now I must take leave of you, I'm off to take holiday in my aloominyum hover craft ta ta.

  • watching spectacular crashes, and you guys are bickering over aluminium?

    oh well, I might as well join in...

    incase you didn't realize it, when you speak english, your language originated from ENGLAND.

  • @jwboll Sorry, English comes from the Germanic languages.

  • Its al mimiunn wonder metal of the Spruce Goose

  • The pallbearers at his funerals included such legends as Jimmy Stewart, John Ford, Jimmy Doolittle, and Chuck Yeager. If you don't know those names, then you don't know anything about movies or aviation. The Guy knew everybody that there was to know in Aviation and Hollywood. Hell, he was Amelia Earhart's copilot on her aborted first attempt to fly around the world.

  • @FS2K4Pilot IIRC Jimmy Stewart was a hell of a stick himself...I suspect insurance and the studio are the ONLY reason he didn't do the flying.

  • @FS2K4Pilot arrogant prick

  • Comment removed

  • @FylthyBeest - lol Fylthy

  • @PhantomUAV Why,because he provided true history?

  • @Scraghunter who says its true? You? Are you also an arrogant prick? You come across like one.

  • @PhantomUAV But your comment proves you to be one. Good day.

  • @PhantomUAV no u

  • @PhantomUAV Here here!!

  • @FS2K4Pilot I'm sorry bud, but not knowing those names does NOT mean you know nothing about movies. I know those names, but I wouldn't consider it essential in understanding the go-abouts of movies. Same goes for aviation. I'm sue there are top class pilots who have never heard of those names. Don't be so arrogant just because you checked up on IMDB's trivia pages.

  • @FS2K4Pilot your right about the history but he was drinking whiskey b4 this happend and then he put to much power on as he lifted of thats what happend

  • @thecravenator42069 only in the US is Aluminium spelled and pronounced Aluminum. The International Union of Pure Applied Chemistry (the final judge on the spelling of names and definitions, and the naming of new elements) ruled Aluminium. Many metals end in IUM, Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium, Titanium, Uranium, etc.

  • @Renshen1957 .. I think you will find that the International Union of Pure Applied Chemistry accepts both spelling and pronunciations as correct. Here in New Zealand and Australia we use often use both... It just depends on the individual thou I know the English hate it when the Americans do something different which I find entertaining

  • @thecravenator42069 alu  minium,,,,,, cool

  • Another reason why aircraft designs must be certified

  • Lucky they had a roll over bar!

  • They should have made it out of Aluminum instead of al-lu-minium

  • I guess Jimmy Stewart was right to be scared of that plane....designed by a model airplane engineer!

  • Wow I did not know that! I love that movie too! Made by Robert Aldrich who made some really good kick ass movies in addition to Flight Of The Phoenix, like The Dirty Dozen, The Longest Yard, Attack, Twilight's Last Gleaming, and Too Late The Hero. Check them all out you'll enjoy them!

  • Compare and contrast with modern news footage where if there is a death on film they put on a fake sombre voice, fade to black and play some sappy music.

    Back then they just stated a mater-of-fact: "they all died" "he died instantly" and then just move on.

    I'm telling you, I am in envy of that generation, the generation that fought through two world wars and a crippling world depression... but they just got on with it.

  • The fulsalage came apart under very moderate loads, aparently the Phoenix was designed and built by script wirters.

  • @bfgray The "Phoenix" that flew and crashed was not the same as was assembled from the C-82. It was built under the supervision of Tallmanz Aviation of assorted aircraft parts and plywood. Manz wasn't satisfied with it, but decided to fly it anyway. It broke in two when the rigid undercarriage (no suspension) hit a sand dune.

  • Thanks for posting this - it's amazing, and Paul mantz was a legend. Wathcing the 2 Beauforts touch and go down was absolutely horriffic.

  • @colin5577 I am in total agreement with you about those Beauforts! It is a horrible thing to see but, as someone else on a news blog recently said to me, the only reason to watch something like that is to learn from it. I'm not certain what I learned there other than 'accidents happen', but it made me freeze and swallow hard.

  • I'm sure it's been mentioned in the 200+ comments, but Jimmy Stewart was also a great pilot...flew bombers in WW2.

  • The plane being more of an experimental aircraft just could not stand the fuselage stress.

  • I once read Paul Mantz received the princely sum of 5000dollars for bellying that B17 in. Asked if he'd do it again, he said he wouldn't do it for 20000

  • This plane was a "Brick" and the director for the film had asked for a struggled landing scene.Paul had decided that the plane would struggle with such manouvers and opted for "touch and goes"but unfortunately on the last "insurance shot" his decent was too high and whatever paul did to try and correct the problem did not work that is why the fuselage snapped after such a hard impact.

  • My dad took me to the Paul Mantz air museum before they auctioned it all. Never forget it.

  • Thanks for posting this. Paul Mantz, one of my childhood heroes. I was not happy when he was killed in this crash.

  • Maybe Airbus was construction it?

  • @kennethHaugan haha, says the american, you dont even get ur planes into the air my friend. boing is history!

  • Best history!

  • Mantz was also the stunt pilot for the plane scenes in "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, world". If you seen the movie, remember the twin engine plane flying through a bill board? That is some stunt flying! Back in the gold old days of "real" stunts before computer animation tricks!

  • @newalm ,

    I HATE cgi!

  • Looks to me like the thing split in half. Perhaps uneaven or some unseen terrain feature made for a pogo-stick impact and cracked it?

  • nails 'hammer some duct tape and she'll be good to go.

  • I remember that Mantz was the skilled pilot of the aiplane "driven" by Stan Lauren and Oliver Hardy in a very old movie about the Stranger Legion in a desert. Very impressive ! George 47

  • Was always curious about this. Sad to see it. Mantz was a great flier.

  • The announcer called the B26 making a wheels-up landing in Port Morseby a "Boston" (UK designation for an A-20).

  • When you study this film at 0:57-1:01 youll see the upper fuselage fail directly behind the wings. Paul did not subject this " modified plane " to extreme circumstances while attempting to land ! The plane had a moderate bounce upon touchdown and broke in two. This caused the cartwheel and his death. I hope the designers of this plane were " hung " ! Theres no excuse !!....

  • What the film doesn't mention is that when the engine was torn from its mounting, it DECAPITATED the unlucky Mantz.. His partner Frank went on to do probably the most famous flying gag ever. The Coca-Cola poster fly-thru, in "...Mad World".

  • It's the LITTLE things that get you. Frank went on to become Hollywood's number one stunt flyer.

    Incidentally, I'd never seen this film (only a still) and the perceived wisdom that despite having wheels concealed (badly) in the skids, the skids STUCK on the ground - causing the crash. However, as the film clearly shows - the undercart simply COLLAPSED after the bumpy landing.

    Thank you for clearing that up.

  • @disparatedan Jeeze dude, aint you got no eyes ? If you carefully study 0:57-1:01, youll see that the upper fuselage, behind the wings, failed upon landing. Try a still at 1:00 and youll see that the landing gear is still intact ! The loss of the weight and integrity of the tail section caused the engine and cockpit to nosedive into the ground at 1:01. Planes landing on aircraft carriers in WW2 took more abuse than this !!

  • @mrstevehartman I don't think we are in disagreement here. I only mentioned the undercart in passing. True, the fusalage broke in two as well - more or less simultaneously with the collapse of the landing struts. And true, the landing was not THAT bumpy - the undercart apparently had NO suspension at all. And true - the DESIGNERS of the "cobbled-together" aircraft were GROSSLY negligent - the thing was a DEATH-TRAP. Frank Tallman's domestic accident saved his life.

  • @disparatedan Right. They did not hit THAT hard. However, look at the pilots in the cockpit starting at 0:55. When they touch down at 0:57 they are both fairly well thrown foreward and down by the impact. It still may be a little rougher than it appears. The tires SEEM to absorb some of the impact tho. Paul must of got real careless on this one. If I was the stunt pilot flying that crate, Id of personally checked it out from stem to stern for durability first !!

  • The irony is that Paul Mantz wasn't supposed to be DOING that gag. His partner, the legendary Frank Tallman (together, they were Talmantz Aviation - responsible for the spectacular gags in "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World") was set to do it, but he was pushing his kid along on a soap-box cart, when he slipped, landed badly and broke his LEG.

  • crashing bore

  • Great Collection

  • In the first sentence; What is ala-minium?

  • @kennethj1956 Being a English news reporter, that`s how he would say the word `Aluminium`, He`s speaking english not american.

  • Wow, had no idea that happened making this movie.

  • Yep. I remember the news cast of it back then.

    Damn fine pilot, and a hella way to go out.

  • Comment removed

  • wow.10 million and then die...............

  • Any landing you can swim away from.....

  • everyone thinks ameircans are pussys fighting weak countrys, well hell they took the crack japanese fighters head on

  • say what u like about regulations or 'it was just build for a trip or two'..

    It was a badly build death trap!

  • I forgot to tell all...Paul Mantz flew hollywood couples to Yuma Az to get married for many years. Clark Gable, Tom Mix.Carole Lombard and others took advantage of AZ liberal marriage laws..and were married at Lutes Chapel in Yuma.

    ..

  • A real shame for such a great stuntman....

    I grew up in Yuma and remember when

    Paul lost his life...Chretin's mexican restaurant had Jimmy Stewart and Ernie Borgnines signed photos over the cash register.Most of the cast of "Phoenix"

    enjoyed margaritas in Yuma when it was filmed.I've rode my ATV in the sand dunes and

    shed a tear at that location.....

  • 1965 FOTP is a great movie with perfect casting, brilliant script and acting. Much better than the recent remake

    R.I.P Paul mantz

  • "great movie with perfect casting, brilliant script and acting"

    Yes, absolutely. The remake was just ... limp.

    The original doesn't have near the following it should have.  I had never seen it -- I enlisted in 1964 & missed a LOT of movies of that period.

    Many years later a friend sat my butt down and made me watch it, and I've been a huge fan ever since.

    This footage is really interesting -- looks like a bit more structure in the fuselage and mantz might be with us yet. Very sad.

  • Wow.. News reels in the mid 60s? He died the year I was born. i too grew up in Alameda. What a piece of sht airplane and a shtty way to die.

  • What a piece of crap to snap on such a light impact. Somebody f**ked up seriously. I guess that's why he made 10 million bucks. A lot of f***king money in those days

  • He was so used to crashing planes that he couldn't help himself. It was inevitable.

  • If only he hadn't made that tragic third pass, I'm sure they could've got enough footage from the first two!

    FOTP is one of my favorite films, but I'd never seen this much talked about footage.

  • Had nothing to do with a '3rd pass'. That aircraft was obviously so under designed that it could not withstand the load imposed by anything much more than a smooth landing on a hard surface runway. He really didn't hit that hard but broke the back of the A/C. They probably cobbled it together without a lot of regard for stress figuring it would be used just a time or two.

  • "They probably cobbled it together without a lot of regard for stress figuring it would be used just a time or two"

    That's a likely scenario. I can't imagine any other aircraft NOT being able to take that stress.

    I wonder whether the tail booms on the old Flying Boxcar were just not as inherently strong as the fuselage because they'd normally be getting a lot less stress & vibration, which would be dissipated in the main frame.

    If so, there's the design flaw ....

  • Oops -- upon re-reading, it appears that the fuselage was NOT the boom from an 82, but a handbuilt piece of plywood. Sounds like they needed better carpenters.

    I'm glad I wasn't the FAA inspector that certified that piece of sh**.

  • Its all too easy to characterize this as a piece s*** or similar comments here. It wasn't. It was built by a bunch of honest hard working folks doing the best they knew how. I am sure Mantz himself was very involved in the design and building. If one is to criticize this A/C because there was a failure then you need refer to everything from the P-51 to the F-16 (and more) as 'pieces of ...' as many a young man died getting those designs dialed in before they became great planes.

  • "If one is to criticize this A/C because there was a failure then you need refer to everything from the P-51 to the F-16 (and more) as 'pieces of ...' "

    I think the point he was making is that, judging from the almost instant, catastrophic separation of the "fuselage," this just shouldn't have happened from what certainly appears to be a very light stress on the struts.

    Since it was designed strictly for a touch & go, this stress seems like something that should have been anticipated.

  • (cont'd)

    Yes, it's easy to Monday-morning-quarterback anything, and without reading the whole FAA report, it's all guesswork.

    However, just from the film, though, it seems like something went really wrong in one spot -- maybe design, maybe a construction goof, and we lost a great aviator.

    Mistakes happen, and I don't think anyone blames Mantz or the team. But it does seem like this weakness MIGHT have been discovered by whoever certified it as airworthy.

  • that was no prarie dog hole. He hit the deck too hard and snapped the spine of the plane causing the front half of the fuselage to dip and forcing the aft half to push through it in a sommer-saulting fashion.

  • Ouch, I'm amazed any survived that one.

  • Must've crashed because of the Al- You- Mini- Um.

    To-may-toe, To-mah-toe

  • is job was to crash planes, gotta have skills!!

  • i suppose the aeronautical engineers who designed the paul mantz aircraft f--ked up

  • @ballroomstyle Remember the movie? Designed by a model airplane designer! Ouch, oh the irony of it all.

  • Wow! first time I saw the crash film, the plane broke its back, then cartwheeled. I also assumed it flew into a hillside or something, I just knew Paul died during filming.

  • I read the crash report said that the plane's wheel hit a prairie dog hole, causing it to crash.

  • i have watch the movie many times never knew about the accident.

  • Fail...

  • bad structural design..........!@#!@#!@#

  • I've seen the original "Flight Of The Phoenix" on tv, and I've always wondered what the actual crash footage looked like. Now I know....

  • makes you appreciate the stuff he did.

  • badly made, when it touched down the force of the not so heavy impact snapped the fuelsalage and caused the front to fall forward.

  • expensive flight waist of money .

  • He flew the twin beech trough the bill board sign in" It's a Man mad world" i believe.