page_title: List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (1945–1949)
section_title: 1946
hierarchical_section_title: List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft (1945–1949) / 1946
caption_attribution_description: English: Messerschmitt Me 262 Werk-Nr. 111711, seen here post-war during a test flight in the USA. It was the first intact Me 262 to fall into Allied hands on March 31st 1945.
context_page_description: This is a list of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft which occurred between 1945 and 1949, grouped by the year in which the accident or incident occurred. Not all of the aircraft were in operation at the time. Combat losses are not included except for a very few cases denoted by singular circumstances.
context_section_description: 1 January
  Budd RB-1 Conestoga, NC45347, c/n 003, ex-BuNo 39294, one of twelve purchased from the War Assets Administration by National Skyway Freight Corp., former AVG members, for $28,642 each at a time when new C-47s go for ~$100,000, belly-lands this date on a golf course at Bluefield, Virginia during an attempted forced landing after running low on fuel. The new company, immediately sold four RB-1 aircraft to other buyers, which paid for the entire WAA contract.
  10 January
  First prototype Douglas XSB2D-1, BuNo 03551, suffers an engine fire 1000 feet over Sunnyvale, California. The aircraft crashes into an orchard and is severely damaged, but the crew of two are uninjured.
  18 January
  A Dornier Do 335A-12 Pfeil (Arrow), AM223, ex-DP+UB, wrk nr 240112, a twin piston engined "push-pull" aircraft, out of RAE Farnborough, suffers a rear-engine fire whilst in flight which severs the control runs and crashes into Cove School, Cove, Hampshire, killing 2 people, according to one source, and injuring six persons on the ground, with the pilot, Group Captain A. F. Hards DSO, KWF according another.
  28 January
  First prototype Short Shetland I, DX166, the largest British-built flying boat, burns out at its mooring from fire in galley before flight testing can be completed.
  1 March
  Two Silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortresses written off in taxi accident at Kirtland Army Air Field, New Mexico. Pilot of Boeing B-29-60-MO Superfortress, 44-86473, of the 509th Composite Group, assigned to Roswell AAF, New Mexico, attempts to taxi without energizing the hydraulic brake system, cannot stop bomber which collides with Boeing B-29-36-MO, 44-27296, "Some Punkins", also of the 509th. "Some Punkins" stricken in August 1946 and destroyed in fire-fighting training. 44-86473 dropped from inventory, April 1946, after salvage.
  7 March
  Silverplate Boeing B-29-30-MO Superfortress, 42-65387, from Kirtland Army Air Field, New Mexico, on practice mission to Los Lunas bombing range, releases 10,150 pound Fat Man shape, and then disintegrates for unknown reasons and spins in from 32,000 feet. Ten crew die, wreckage strewn up to 16 miles from main portion. B-29 that drops the weapon in Operation Crossroads test Able on 1 July 1946, is named "Dave's Dream" for bombardier Dave Semple, killed in this accident.
  17 March
  A Republic of China Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain, crashes  into hills near Nanjing, China, in bad weather, killing all 20 on board, including Lt. Gen. Dai Li (also: Tai Li), head of Chiang Kai-shek's Military Intelligence Service. A CIA site offers this view: "Dai Li was dead, but many refused to believe it. Some blamed the crash on communist sabotage, others on a bomb planted by OSS. The most common rumor was that Dai Li had faked his own death. But Dai Li was dead, and it was bad weather that did it, not the OSS. He was buried on a hillside outside Nanjing, not far from Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum. In 1949, his remains were destroyed by the communists. A hero to some, a demon to others, Dai Li with his genius for organization had created the largest spying machine of its time, but reviews of its effectiveness are mixed." However, another view offered by Jay Robert Nash in his volume, "Spies: A Narrative Encyclopedia of Dirty Trick and Double Dealing From Biblical Times To Today", states that "Tai Li was killed when his plane exploded in mid-flight, undoubtedly from a bomb planted by one of K'ang Sheng's agents."
  19 March
  Col. George Vernon Holloman, (1902–1946), a native of Rich Square, North Carolina, aviation instrument inventor and early experimenter with guided missiles, is killed in Boeing B-17G-95-DL, 44-83779, accident at Hokusekiko, Formosa, while en route from China to the Philippines due to bad weather. Holloman had received the DFC for conducting the first instrument-only landing of an aircraft. Alamogordo Army Air Base, New Mexico, renamed Holloman AFB, 13 January 1948. Pilot was James E. Parker.
  19 March
  The wreckage of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress en route from Hickam Field, Hawaii, to Hamilton Field, California, unheard from after 
caption: Me 262A, Wrknr. 111711, the first of the type to come into Allied hands, lost near Xenia, Ohio, 20 August 1946.
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