Pilot’s tags found

One bedroom in Patrick Glasgow’s Newport Beach home is filled with faded photographs and postcards from his father, who died more than 50 years ago when the F-11 Tiger he was piloting crashed on an Alabama beach.

One black-and-white picture shows a grinning, young pilot in a flight suit, with his hands on his hips, standing in front of a Navy jet.

Glasgow’s family will get his father’s battered dog tags and a tarnished metal emblem from his father’s former fighter squadron back later this month after an Alabama woman found the items on the beach near her home, half a century later.

“It’s almost like he’s letting us know that he’s still around and still watching over us,” Patrick Glasgow said.

Glasgow was just 12 when his father, Cmdr. Robert N. Glasgow, died in a fiery crash after his plane smashed into a small beach house on the Gulf of Mexico on Oct. 14, 1958. He remembers standing in his parents’ bedroom that morning before school and saying goodbye to his father.

“I remember it very clearly. It was the last time I ever saw him,” he said.

Patrick Glasgow’s father was slated to take over as commander of the Blue Angels squadron at Pensacola Naval Air Station and had reported for duty just a few days before his plane crashed on an orientation flight.

Earlier this week, Glasgow learned from reading an Associated Press news story that Debbie Harris, 56, of Fort Morgan, Ala., had found his father’s belongings in the sand near her home.

Harris lives on the beach just a few hundred yards from the sight of the crash. She grew up hearing about the Blue Angels pilot who died there years ago. The charred remains of the house Robert Glasgow’s plane crashed into are still visible on the undeveloped beach.

“I grew up always knowing about the crash and I had always wondered who the pilot was and what he was like,” Harris said.

Last October, around the 50th anniversary of the crash, Harris came across a small, tarnished metal emblem from a fighter squadron on the sand, a few hundred yards from her house. The emblem, about the size of a nickel, was from Fighter Squadron 191, which Robert Glasgow used to fly with.

“It was laying there on top of the ground like somebody had dropped it there,” Harris said.

Harris later found Robert Glasgow’s bent dog tag in the sand on the pilot’s birthday, Feb. 17.

She became determined to return the items to the Glasgow family.

“The door was open and I could not but walk through it to find the family,” Harris said.

Her search to find the Glasgow family led her to the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Fla., where Harris’ aunt and uncle live. The museum director happened to be Bob Rasmussen, who was flying with Robert Glasgow the day he died. Rasmussen was the last person to see and speak to Robert Glasgow.

“It’s kind of strange when I found those items, all the different coincidences. It was just like there was this other power working to bring all of this together,” Harris said.

Rasmussen remembers clearly the October day 50 years ago when he went out flying with Robert Glasgow, to get him oriented to the Blue Angels planes.

Rasmussen left Robert Glasgow at one point during the flight and flew 30 miles away to Mobile, Ala., to test some radio equipment. By the time he switched his radio back to Robert Glasgow’s frequency, about three minutes later, the new commander was gone.

Flying over the beach, Rasmussen saw the smoking wreckage of the plane.

An eyewitness to the crash said the pilot was attempting to maneuver the plane in a loop before the crash.

“It was about as big of a shock as you can imagine,” Rasmussen said.

When Harris’ relatives in Pensacola contacted Rasmussen about the found items, he knew immediately whom they belonged to.

“Bizarre is not the right word, maybe a coincidence of the first order,” Rasmussen said. “This is something so highly improbable that she found these two items in two different locations on different days. The coincidences are almost beyond belief.”

Harris is planning a trip to Newport Beach later this month to return the items to Patrick Glasgow’s mother, Corona del Mar resident Mickie Sue Glasgow, 87, who turned down an interview request.

“She has a drawer where she keeps my father’s silver oak leaves and his ID card,” Patrick Glasgow said. “It’s where she keeps all of his stuff, so these things will probably go there too.”

Reporter BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].