Warbird Information Exchange

Alright you brilliant monkeys, this Mustang is a bit of mystery as it sports the serial number 44-74960 which apparently went to El Salvador but did not return.

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/p51regis ... 74960.html



so my question is which airframe is this?

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Hello Scott,

If my information is correct, the plane is in fact 44-11153, which crashed in March 1988, killing the owner Bill Clark. In Michael O/Leary's book "Mustang, a living legend" published in 1987, it was thought that the plane serial was 44-74960 (registered N51WE or N51WB, conflicting info), but the real ID was still being investigated.

Interestingly, there is a 44-74960 listed in the survivors list on the mustangsmustangs.net website, "x:N5459V, stored wreckage '88"

Maybe someone will have more info.

HTH,

Laurent

Hi

N5459V is a reg. often connected to '74960 before it reportedly was sent to Salvador in 1969 - it might be that components that allegedly belonged to this a/c were procured from the Illopango Dump - therefore the term 'wreckage'

The returnees from FAS were assigned spurious serial numbers to meet FAA requirements in order to register them in the U.S. - as it is well known, many airframes were illegally exported to Salvador in 1969 which resulted in law-suits and other hiccups connected to the real serials / registrations of those airframes - making it impossible to re-register them in the U.S. using the old identities.
This led to some confusion as to the true identities of these airframes, moreover that in one case paperwork were switched between two aircraft after returnment.

This topic has been discussed at lenght on LAAHS and probably MustangsMustangs, involving amon others TJ Johannsen, Dick Phillips, and myself.


Martin