ME Me - Fred Corrow, 43, Dixfield, 18 November 1969

[Valerio]

November 18, 1969: Fred Corrow of Dixfield Maine left Folsoms Flying Service in Greenville Maine in a Cessna 180 Float Plane tail #N9113T. Mr. Corrow was practicing float landings on Fitzgerald Pond (now called Mountain View Pond). Moose Head Lake was a possible crash site and was searched.

Photo of similar Cessna 180 float plane.

closure

 

[Valerio]

NTSB Document from Maine State Archives on Cessna 180, registration: N9113T

 

[Valerio]

Report of Overdue Aircraft: Page 1 & 2 from Maine State Archives.

 

[Valerio]

View attachment 135301 View attachment 135301
Report of Overdue Aircraft: Page 1 & 2 from Maine State Archives.

Page 1 of Report of Overdue Aircraft was copied twice, page 2 is small one (fred corrow 3.jpg) below those.

 

[Valerio]

Aerial search pattern on November 19, 1969 for Fred Corrow and his Cessna 180 float plane tail number N9113T.


MAP FROM MAINE STATE ARCHIVES

 

[Tssiemer]

Nevermind.

 

[Valerio]

You really had me going for a second, all of these documents I got from the Maine State Archives years ago when I was really into researching lost Maine aircraft. I may be the only person to even have some of these documents....maybe.

 

[Tssiemer]

Yeah the problem with the new site format is I can’t actually see the link of a link posted. So I don’t see you had already posted it. Lol.

 

[Valerio]

Yeah, I really did a really careful search of the 1960's missing before I posted the thread. One thing I noticed on my end though is I tried to search in the 'search forums' for one of the ones you posted a link to and it still did not recognize that it was there. I must still be doing something wrong. Also it could not find any NamUs case numbers but found all of the Doe Network case numbers just fine??
I am still trying to figure it all out. I have quite a bit of documents and crash site photos on a lot of different missing planes from Maine that I will post at some point. There is not much at all on the internet on some of these.
I spent many hours going through boxes and boxes of photos and documents and having the Maine State Archives print them all for a dime a piece.

 

[Tssiemer]

I’m not trying to like be a b!itch!! I just wanted you to know!! This one sounds interesting. I went on he Ancestry for the Corrows because it came up in the google search.

 

[Valerio]

I really appreciate that you were letting me know about me posting things that already had threads. Because on my end I could not even see it. I would be interested to know anything you find. There is a lot of mystery about things he did just before he went missing. I am going to post a couple now.

 

[Valerio]

This is a handwritten note (from some unknown person), there are some more of these but this one says he borrowed $6,000.00 total from two different camp owners, and it says he owed a lot of bills.(don't we all!!) I can not verify who wrote this. This is from the Maine State Archives which is open to the public. So this is all public accessible information if one cares to dig through hundreds of unmarked folders to find it.

 

[Tssiemer]

This is a handwritten note (from some unknown person), there are some more of these but this one says he borrowed $6,000.00 total from two different camp owners, and it says he owed a lot of bills.(don't we all!!) I can not verify who wrote this. This is from the Maine State Archives which is open to the public. So this is all public accessible information if one cares to dig through hundreds of unmarked folders to find it.

Fancy!!!

 

[Valerio]

Somewhere....I have more 'official' paper work into the investigation of his goings on days before the flight. I had separated those from these (for some reason) now I wished I had not. Now I got to go into MY boxes of stuff to find these five or six documents...I really hope I do because it sheds a lot of light onto what might have been going on before his last 'known' flight. Here are a couple more of the ones I have though.

This more than likely from: R. B. Folsom, as the next one indicates.

 

[Valerio]

When you compare (Cont. 0-470-k) from the little note I first postedn the right: to the (Cont. 0-470-k) it matches R.B. Folsom's handwriting in my 'unprofessional opinion'.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I notice that Greenville is around 70km (40 miles or thereabouts) from the Canadian border. Were Corrow's problems such that going to Canada under the radar would be an attractive option?

 

[Valerio]

I notice that Greenville is around 70km (40 miles or thereabouts) from the Canadian border. Were Corrow's problems such that going to Canada under the radar would be an attractive option?

I am still looking for those other documents that I have on the investigation of what he was doing days before his last 'known' flight.
The fact he borrowed $6,000.00 two days before he vanished, which was a boat load of money in 1969 raises flags. I am sure there was quite an investigation with documents that the public would never have access to. He very possibly was not doing any thing wrong. He was an inexperienced pilot practicing stalls over Moose Head Lake (supposedly) and maybe just crashed in somewhere in such a way that his aircraft could not be found, plus it snowed right after it happened and they called off the search. I just wonder if he planned something because he 'knew' it would snow the next day or so. As for as the money was concerned maybe those camp owners were investing in something legitimate. Maybe he wanted to buy his own float plane or something. He could have landed on any number of Maine lakes and refueled somehow and flew all the way to California for that matter. I have a lot of other Maine plane crash documents and photos of similar cases. Some of these other aircraft still have not been found either. Sometimes they find the plane 30 years later but not the pilot and passengers. Maine is a very forested and mountainous area in the northern half of the state. But to answer your question, Canada would have been easy for him with just the fuel he had more than likely.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

The fact he borrowed $6,000.00 two days before he vanished, which was a boat load of money in 1969 raises flags.

I'm not sure about a "boat load" of money. measuringworth.com gives today's equivalent as being in the region of $40,000-$45,000 or as high as $114,000 depending on what it's being compared in terms of. The higher figure is the economic power in today's terms of that $6,000. Either way, it's not a life changing sum of money but it could well be a useful amount to get started in Canada if that was his plan. If used carefully it would probably have paid rent and living expenses for a few years while he was finding his feet and establishing a new identity.

I guess I was thinking that if the general conclusion was that he was killed in a hypothetical plane crash the search for him might well be less intense and shorter than if there was a suspicion he had simply done a runner to get away from his problems. Also of course the ability of US LE to conduct enquiries across the border in Canada would have been decidedly less than if he had just skipped a few states across and started a new life elsewhere in the US.

 

[Peter Noddin]

I am in the process of planning a search for Fred. If I am lucky, all of the equipment and assets will come together for a 2018 search. If not, July 2019. I am convinced that he impacted Moosehead Lake at high angle of attack. I have interviewed 3 hunters who heard it happen, but could not see the aircraft at the time. He may have had trouble recovering from a stall or ran into trouble while shooting a landing approach. The search area is one where his instructor had him do landings and the aircraft did have a minor mechanical defect that could have contributed to him losing control while pulling positive g.

 

[Valerio]

What was the minor mechanical defect??