MONTEREY PENINSULA HERALD

TUESDAY. JUNE 19. 1973

Homemade Craft Explodes Over Salinas River

SALINAS - Two Monterey men, one of them a pioneer aviator and one-time high wire performer, were killed yesterday when a homemade plane exploded in midair over the Salinas River 12 miles south­east of Salinas.

Coroner Christopher Hill Jr. identified the victims as Harold S. Hart, 79,  who had built the plane at his home over the last several years, and Navy Cmdr. Richard D. Leach, 38, of La Mesa Village.

Hart was a famous aerialist in the 1920s and went by the name of Hap Hazard. Former Monterey Mayor George Clemens, an old friend, recalled that Hazard used to fly to his vaudeville and circus engagements and when arriving in a town would fly up­side down so that people could read his name which he had painted on the upper side of the wings.

 

The homemade plane had been flown many times in recent months. Hart did not pilot aircraft anymore himself but he would go up accompanied by someone else, quite often a flier assigned to the Naval Postgraduate School, his family said.

Hill said Leach was an experienced pilot and in process of building a plane of his own.

The coroner also said that preliminary investigation would seem to rule out a "pilot error" as to the cause of the mishap.

Sheriff's deputies said today that the small two-seat, yellow plane disintegrated at about 5 p.m. around 2,000 feet above the ground and wreckage was strewn over several acres.

Blast Seen

Two Army helicopter crews in the area witnessed the explosion and assisted in the recovery efforts, officers said. Both bodies were flown by helicopter to Fort Ord.

Salinas Airport officials said today that the plane which took off from their airstrip prior to the crash had not signaled the airport tower of any in-flight difficulties .

Officials of the Federal Aviation Administration in Salinas said this morning that an inves­tigation into the crash is in progress, and they identified the plane as a Turner T-40-H.

 

Mr. Hart was born in St. Helena, Calif., on June 6, 1894, and had been a resident of the Monterey Peninsula for 17 years. He started his flying career with the U.S. Navy in World War I, and when he crashed his plane off the coast of France, he was given first aid treatment before being transferred to San Diego Naval Hospital. The surgeon who was assigned the task of operating on him referred to the emergency treatment as being "the most haphazard job I ever saw."

 

From that day forward, Mr. Hart was known as "Hap Hazard," and when he returned to the circus life he had interrupted when he entered the service, that was how he was billed.

 

Show Business

 

Mr. Hart had entered show business as a teen-ager when the manager of a circus had seen him perform for guests at his father's sanitarium in San Jose. He went on to become a famous aerialist.

 

Mr. Hart never lost his love of flying, and when he used a plane to get from city to city along the circus route, he soon became as well known among

old-time aviators as he was in .the world of the circus. While performing vaudeville and night club dates in 1941, he spent the daylight hours flying a plane for a parachute jumper who made six jumps a day.  

 

He is survived by his wife, Lydia E. Hart of Monterey; a daughter, Mrs. Marilyn Hellman, also of Monterey; two grandchildren and two great­grandchildren.

Private funeral services were held today at Mission Mortuary.

After cremation, Mr. Hart's ashes will be scattered over the ocean, at his request.

Services for Cmdr. Leach are pending at Seaside Mortuary.