Book Recounts 1947 Air Guard Accident

Following more than three years of careful research and painstaking interviewing of witnesses whose recollections may have faded with time, a Gwinnett county aviation enthusiast and amateur historian has published what is perhaps the first accurate account of the 1953 crash of four Georgia Air National Guard fighter jets in which all four pilots were killed.

“Four Down on Old Peachtree Road” is a 261-page book documenting the events of that crash.
Author Ben Cole of Suwanee officially debuted the book at ceremonies on December 6, 2006, 54 years to the day after the crash on Gwinnett County’s Old Peachtree Road.

Killed that fateful day, according to Air Force documents, were Capt. Idon Hodge, first lieutenants Sam Dixon Jr. and Elwood Kent, and 2nd Lt. William Tennent.

From official reports and eyewitness accounts he gathered, Cole was able to reconstruct what happened just after midnight on Dec. 6, 1953. The four pilots, assigned to the former 128th Fighter Bomber Squadron, 116th Fighter Bomber Group, were flying back to Marietta’s Dobbins Air Force Base from a training mission in Miami. Hodge, Dixon Kent and Tennent were flying four Republic-built F-84D “Thunder Jet” fighters in formation through that cloudy, rainy night. Hodge, the lead pilot, depended on his instruments to guide him and his men home.

Accident reports indicated the four jets were much lower than Hodge’s altimeter showed. Former difficult to read. Soon after the crash, according to Cole’s book, the altimeter design was upgraded.

When the crash occurred, the four pilots and their aircraft slammed into the rented home of Ernest Brooks. He and his family escaped certain death because they were not home at the time. Brook’s brother James represented the family at the book’s debut along with more than 20 invited guests. Also there was Gen. Joel Paris, who was the Georgia Adjutant General at the time of the accident, and Hodge’s widow.

Along with the book, Cole raised $2,000 used to erect the Old Peachtree Road memorial plaque for the crash’s 50th anniversary in December 2003.t.”