‘Unsolved Histories’ Episode 3: ‘Jody has always stayed with me’ after 1963 crash
Oct 17, 2024, 1:50 PM | Updated: 8:17 pm
Susan Francis, left, and Jody Whipkey were high school classmates in El Paso, Texas, when Jody's father was assigned to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. The entire Whipkey family -- Jody, her sister, and her mother and father -- perished on Flight 293. (Photo courtesy of Susan Francis via Feliks Banel)
(Photo courtesy of Susan Francis via Feliks Banel)
Editors’ note: “Unsolved Histories: What Happened to Flight 293” is a podcast that is about three intersecting stories that Seattle-based historian Feliks Banel has been investigating. It’s a mystery about what happened to an airliner that disappeared. It’s an expos茅 of a government loophole that let’s the military turn its back on grieving families. It’s also a deep dive into the resilience of human beings. The following is a narrative summary of Episode 3 of titled
In Episode 3, Feliks introduces more family members who lost loved ones on the flight, and we try to understand exactly what happened to a woman named Susan, who was a teenager when her best friend Jody headed for Alaska on the doomed airliner.
Susan Francis was 16 years old and going to high school in El Paso, Texas, in the spring of 1963. She and Jody Whipkey had been best friends since middle school, and were making the most of their sophomore year.
It was a golden age to be a teen in America.
“We were crazy kids. We flirted with boys, and we loved theater and drama and dance. We were in dance classes together,鈥� Francis said. 鈥淲e loved dogs. We bought each other crazy things.鈥�
“She was sparkly and she had a sense of humor, she laughed,鈥� Francis recalls of her best friend Jody. 鈥淢y mother loved her, because you always laughed when you talked to Jody 鈥� she said cute, funny things.”
Episode 1 of ‘Unsolved Histories’ is called ‘Brothers:’ Flight 293 never arrived at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska
Episode 2 is called ‘The Wreckage:’ Finding a haunting memento after the 1963 plane crash
Moving to Alaska
Jody鈥檚 father was stationed at the old Biggs Air Force Base in El Paso. Sometime around March 1963, Jody told Susan that her father had been assigned to Elmendorf Air Force Base, and the Whipkey family was moving to Alaska. Jody鈥檚 mom considered letting Jody stay behind in El Paso with Susan, but once school was out at the end of May, Jody departed Texas with her mother, father and older sister. They headed north to McChord to connect with Flight 293.
A few days later, Susan Francis found out about the crash from her mom, who鈥檇 read about it in the El Paso newspaper. Susan was devastated.
Before the crash, Susan began having a series of vivid dreams about Jody and her family 鈥� picturing them waiting to board the plane, then sitting on the plane, and then buckling their seatbelts as the DC-7C hit turbulence. Then, around the time of the crash, Susan is convinced she saw Jody in her neighborhood, walking toward her in the distance, only to disappear a few blocks away.
Susan claims to be a confirmed skeptic who needs evidence in order to believe something is true. But she also said that something inexplicable was happening in June 1963.
“I felt like Jody tried to say goodbye to me,” Francis said. 鈥淲hether I made that up in my brain, or whether there鈥檚 some remote way through, I don鈥檛 know, mitochondrial DNA or something like that, she tried to connect with me.”
Over the decades, Susan Francis left El Paso and moved to California. But she never forgot her best friend. “I graduated. I got married. I had a baby. I mean, life goes on,” she said. “But Jody has always stayed with me.”
‘Unsolved Histories:’ Creating a community
Susan Francis and Greg Barrowman, who we met in Episode 1, each lost someone they love on Flight 293. After sharing their experiences in an emotional phone call, the two decided to organize and to seek out others with connections to Flight 293 and to create a group devoted to commemorating the tragedy.
One of the first people they found is Don Bennett, who was just a young child in Louisiana when his father Austin “Dallie” Bennett died on Flight 293.
One day, Don joined Greg and Susan on a conference call on which Don shared distinct memories of his father, and was overcome with emotion.
鈥淚鈥檒l probably cry when I get off the phone, just knowing that I鈥檓 talking with somebody that had family or friends on that plane,鈥� Bennett told them. 鈥淭hey might have been sitting next to my dad.鈥�
“What went through my dad鈥檚 mind when that plane was going down?鈥� Don asked Greg and Susan. 鈥淲hat went through my dad鈥檚 mind knowing that he has five children he ain鈥檛 never gonna get to see again?”
More from Feliks Banel: The historian’s most recent stories for 成人X站 Newsradio and MyNorthwest
Austin “Dallie” Bennett was a passenger on Flight 293 whose son Don connected with Greg Barrowman and Susan Francis over their shared connections to the tragedy. (Photo courtesy of Don Bennett via Feliks Banel)
Losing a sister, niece and nephew
Connie Miller of Gresham, Oregon, lost her younger sister Jewell Smith on Flight 293. She also lost Jewell鈥檚 two young children, who were Connie鈥檚 two-and-a-half-year-old nephew and six-week old niece.
Miller said the tragedy changed her parents immediately. They had driven Jewell and her two kids from Gresham to McChord Air Force Base, so they could join Jewell鈥檚 husband in Anchorage.
鈥淢y mother and father left as a middle-aged couple up to take their daughter to put her on a plane with their grandchildren,鈥� Miller said. When they returned home, having learned of the plane鈥檚 disappearance, the couple were haggard and hunched over, and, she said, 鈥渨alking up the sidewalk were two old people.鈥�
“It just aged them instantly,” she recalls.
You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks .
