“Rog 88” was the pilot’s abbreviated, almost casual response to the duty controller’s request for a radio check. On hearing that standard radio-communications exchange over the intercom of his remote radar bomb scoring (RBS) site on the Texas shoreline, the young radar operator broke lock on the massive B-52 bomber he’d been tracking and repositioned the antenna atop his trailer 140° to the left. Satisfied the pencil beam of his radar was trained on the bomb run “front door” 70 miles away to the northeast, he left his trailer for a ten-minute break before MEAL 88 would return through that imaginary point in space at 800 feet above the water and 350 knots indicated airspeed for the aircrew’s third and final electronically scored run of the night.
Pictured: Missing B-52 Aircrew
Tragically, “Rog 88” was the last radio transmission from the bomber that cold-for-Texas night an hour or so after the passage of a fast-moving cold front that had spawned tornados in the Panhandle. At that instant, MEAL 88 was three quarters of the way around the flight-planned 180° climbing left turn away from the sparsely lit and barren Texas coastline. And, as the pilot visually cleared that turn over his left shoulder, he would have been looking at a star-filled sky over a rare smooth-as-glass Gulf of Mexico, its pitch-black waters illuminated only by the shimmering lights from oil platforms and shrimp boats on the distant horizon.
Pictured: USAF B-52 Stratofortress
Two minutes later and 15 miles away to the northeast, tensions rose amongst the 12-man RBS crew when only silence and static was heard over the intercom as their controller made 27 unanswered requests for a radio check. Those tensions only mounted when MEAL 88 failed to pass through the front door to their bomb run at the aircrew’s scheduled entry time 40 minutes prior to midnight on 28 February 1968.
At five o’clock the following Leap Day morning, eight teams of Air Force officers, each in a blue service-dress uniform, stood solemnly on the doorsteps of eight Fort Worth, Texas homes. Their grim task… deliver the sad news to eight wives before the public affairs office at Carswell Air Force Base issued its press release announcing a 7th Bomb Wing “B-52 bomber down in the Gulf of Mexico offshore Matagorda Island, Texas.”
Nine days later, and when an exhaustive air, land and sea search had failed to find any physical trace of the missing B-52 or her aircrew, senior Air Force officials called off the search and sent the accident-investigation team home. Four days after that, those same decision makers closed the book on the disappearance and issued death certificates when the accident-investigation board president issued his final report with only one finding of substance…
Along their diverse life journeys between the disappearance and today, 132 surviving members of the unintended survivors’ community have longed for the closure that grows more impossible with the passage of time. Understandably, the Air Force has been unable to provide any sense of closure because the missing aircraft could not be located before the limits of time and financial resources forced officials to abandon the search.
Fast forward to today. Project Recover believes closure for those families is now, at long last, not only possible, but probable. Thanks to the forensic analysis of the archived facts tied to the disappearance, coupled with the breathtaking technological advances made in the science of maritime archaeology since 1968, a new search for the missing Matagorda B-52 has a high probability of success.
To that end, Project Recover and the all-civilian investigative B-52 Bomber Down Team have partnered to launch the Texas B-52 Mission fundraising campaign. Our objective is to deliver on America’s Promise in 2025 by bringing decades of experience and a proven track record of success to find the missing crew. Phase one includes locating and documenting the aircraft and crash site. The cost of the 21-day search mission is $500,000.
Visit the B-52 Bomber Down website to learn the full story of the missing aircraft. If you’d like to support our fundraising efforts to locate and bring all eight of these American aviators home to their loved ones, please visit Project Recover to make your tax-deductible contribution.
For specific fundraising questions, please contact Christian@Projectrecover.org
Project Recover & B-52 Bomber Down Team
