![]() ![]() The Discovery Channel did a documentary about it. ![]() The national media grabbed the story and descended on Eagle. In its psychological report, the Air Force says it interviewed about 200 people, including friends, fellow pilots and relatives. He suggested that his son was disoriented by jet fuel fumes, could not control his plane and crashed. “They pulled that out of a hat: that he must have done it himself, which I think is a lie,” Richard Button, Craig’s father and a retired Air Force colonel who fought in three wars, told the New York Times.īutton’s father flew for the Air Force during World War II, Korea and Vietnam. His parents angrily rejected that conjecture and lambasted the media for suggesting their son may have sabotaged the flight. Two decades later, we have a clear picture of what happened, but why remains a mystery.Ī 1998 Air Force report suggests unrequited love and conflicting emotions between learning to kill as a member of the military, juxtaposed with his mother’s Jehovah’s Witness and pacifist philosophy. Button touched off a mystery that will never be solved when he broke formation in his A-10 Thunderbolt near Gila, Arizona, flew 800 miles off course as he zigzagged across northern Arizona and Colorado and crashed into Gold Dust Peak in the Holy Cross Wilderness near Vail. Instead of touching down safely, Air Force Captain Craig D. Craig Button, who flew his A-10 Thunderbolt attack plane into Gold Dust Peak. In the last reported sighting, Button is northeast of Aspen, near Craig’s Peak and New York MountainĮditor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part series looking back at the April 1997 crash of Capt. Button is heading northeast againġ:40 p.m. north by northeast of its previous sighting, the A-10 is between Aspen and Grand Junction againġ:37 p.m. the A-10 is southeast of the last sightingġ:35 p.m. Button is due south of his last positionġ:33 p.m. bearing to the northeast, Button is now north of Aspenġ:30 p.m. ![]() Button begins a zig-zag pattern with this sighting between Grand Junction and Aspenġ:27 p.m. several miles south of Lake Rooseveltġ:22 p.m. west of Apache Junction, Arizonaġ2:11 p.m. Debris scattered over a quarter-mile-square area. The Air Force concluded the jet probably had two to five minutes of fuel remaining when it crashed.This training mission would have been the first time Captain Button dropped live ordnance. Button’s $9 million single-seat A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft was armed with four Mk-82 bombs, 60 magnesium flares, 120 metal chaff canisters and 575 rounds of 30-millimeter ammunition.For years, a sign at the Gold Dust Peak trailhead warned that hikers might encounter 30 mm ammunition. It took three weeks to find the crash site, and all summer to clean it up.He did not attempt to eject before the crash.He crashed into Gold Dust Peak in the Holy Cross Wilderness.The Air Force determined that Button was flying his aircraft manually and purposefully. His jet was spotted numerous times by observers on the ground. He flew in a northeasterly direction toward Four Corners, where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah come together in one spot. Near Gila Bend, Arizona, after being refueled in-flight, Button unexpectedly broke formation. Button flew hundreds of miles off course without radio contact.Button was on a training mission with two other A-10s from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.24, 1964-April 2, 1997) was a United States Air Force pilot who died when he crashed an A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft under mysterious circumstances. ![]()
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