November 23: On This Day in World History … briefly
It is possible that aircraft parts found near the eastern shore of Lake Superior in late October 1968 were from the missing F-89. A US Air Force officer confirmed the parts were from a military jet aircraft and news reports speculated these might be from the F-89 missing from Kinross AFB in 1953. The identity of the parts was never published and the Canadian government states they have no record of the find.
1953: Pilots disappear while in pursuit of a mysterious craft
First Lieutenant Felix Eugene Moncla Jr. (October 21, 1926 – presumed dead November 23, 1953) was a United States Air Force pilot who disappeared while performing an air defense intercept over Lake Superior in 1953. This is sometimes known as the Kinross Incident, after Kinross Air Force Base, where Moncla was on temporary assignment when he disappeared.
The US Air Force reported that Moncla had crashed and that the object of the intercept was a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) aircraft. According to the report, the pilot of the Canadian aircraft was later contacted and stated that he did not see the intercepting plane and did not know that he was the subject of an interception.
However, on several occasions, the RCAF denied that any of their aircraft was involved in any incident on that day, in correspondence with members of the public asking for further details of the intercept.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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