{"id":6570001,"date":"2026-07-21T17:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=6570001"},"modified":"2026-08-24T16:54:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:54:58","slug":"hughes-xf-11-crash-beverly-hills-1946","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/hughes-xf-11-crash-beverly-hills-1946\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard Hughes Crashed His Own Spy Plane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><\/p>\r\n<p>On the afternoon of 7 July 1946, Howard Hughes was seventy-five minutes into the first official flight of his new reconnaissance aircraft when the right side of it stopped cooperating.<\/p>\r\n<p>Every instrument said the engine was fine. It was. What had failed was one half of the propeller: the rear blades of a contra-rotating pair had gone into reverse pitch while the front blades still pulled. Half the disc was dragging the aircraft backwards.<\/p>\r\n<p>He aimed for a golf course and missed it by three hundred yards.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; padding: 20px 24px; margin: 24px 0; border-radius: 8px;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 12px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17px; color: #222;\">Informazioni rapide<\/p>\r\n<table style=\"width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.6;\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Aeromobili<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Hughes XF-11, serial 44-70155 \u2014 the first of two prototypes<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>What it was<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">A photo-reconnaissance aircraft, not a fighter. The pre-1948 \u201cF\u201d prefix stood for <em>Foto<\/em><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Motori<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">Two Pratt &amp; Whitney R-4360-31 Wasp Major radials, 28 cylinders each, 3,000\u00a0hp for takeoff<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Propellers<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">The first prototype had dual four-bladed contra-rotating props \u2014 eight blades per side<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Performance<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">450\u00a0mph at 33,000\u00a0ft, ceiling 42,000\u00a0ft, 101\u00a0ft span<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>The crash<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">7 July 1946, Culver City. Hughes flying solo, airborne 1 hr 15 min. He clipped three houses in Beverly Hills<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>The cause<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">A leak disabled the right propeller\u2019s pitch control and the rear propeller of the pair reversed<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>Il verdetto<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">USAAF investigators blamed pilot error. Hughes rejected that and successfully sued the propeller manufacturer<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 12px 5px 0; color: #666; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;\"><strong>The second prototype<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<td style=\"padding: 5px 0; color: #222;\">44-70156, with conventional single four-bladed props, flew uneventfully on 5 April 1947<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The warnings he flew past<\/h2>\r\n<p>Two details from that morning are hard to read charitably.<\/p>\r\n<p>During pre-flight engine runs, hydraulic fluid for the right propeller had to be topped up repeatedly. No leak was ever found. Hughes flew anyway.<\/p>\r\n<p>He also loaded 1,200 gallons of fuel where the USAAF flight plan specified 600, and retracted the landing gear against the agreed protocol for a first flight. Both decisions made an emergency landing harder: more weight, and a gear system that would need to work again.<\/p>\r\n<p>None of which changes the fact that the propeller failed. But it explains why the board of inquiry reached for pilot error.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px; width: 100%;\"><img data-opt-id=604750184  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/hughes-xf-11-banking-away-air-to-air.jpg\" alt=\"Hughes XF-11 second prototype banking away in flight\" width=\"1024\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">The second XF-11 prototype in the air. Note the conventional single propellers \u2014 the contra-rotating pairs that killed the first aircraft were gone. San Diego Air &amp; Space Museum Archives \/ public domain<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Why he could not diagnose it<\/h2>\r\n<p>This is the part that makes the accident genuinely interesting rather than simply careless.<\/p>\r\n<p>On a contra-rotating installation, one engine drives two propellers turning in opposite directions on the same shaft. When the hydraulic pitch mechanism failed on the right side, only the <em>rear<\/em> propeller reversed. The front one kept producing thrust. The engine kept running normally, at normal RPM, showing normal readings on every gauge in the cockpit.<\/p>\r\n<p>So Hughes had an aircraft yawing violently right, losing altitude, with nothing on his instrument panel to tell him why. He initially assumed he had a right-engine problem and worked the wrong drills.<\/p>\r\n<p>By the time he understood, he was two miles from the field at 5,000 feet, sinking. He turned for the Los Angeles Country Club golf course, the largest open ground within reach.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7; display: flex; gap: 20px; align-items: flex-start;\">\r\n<div><em>\u201cIf I have made a mistake in the design, then I\u2019m the one who should pay for it, and I certainly would not ask somebody else to fly the plane if I were afraid to do it myself\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Howard Hughes<\/strong> \u2014 Aviator, industrialist, and pilot of XF-11 44-70155, on why he flew his own prototypes<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Beverly Hills<\/h2>\r\n<p>He came down three hundred yards short of the fairway, into a residential street. The XF-11 clipped three houses. The third and the aircraft were destroyed by the impact and the fire that followed.<\/p>\r\n<p>Hughes was pulled out alive. Contemporary press reports gave him roughly a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the night. He later disputed the injury tally that circulated afterwards, insisting that X-rays showed he had broken every rib he had rather than the eleven usually reported \u2014 though that figure comes from Hughes himself, in a document where he was actively managing his own story, and no neutral source itemises it.<\/p>\r\n<p>He never accepted the official finding.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #d32f2f; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7; display: flex; gap: 20px; align-items: flex-start;\">\r\n<div><em>\u201cHell, there was no loss of control. The airplane was completely under control right up to the time it hit the house. There never was a semblance of any stall or spin or anything of that kind at all. It was just a matter of a steady loss of altitude, due to the fact that this right propeller was in reverse\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Howard Hughes<\/strong> \u2014 Rejecting the board of inquiry\u2019s conclusion that he lost control<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px; width: 100%;\"><img data-opt-id=2102964635  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/hughes-xf-11-second-prototype-airborne.jpg\" alt=\"Hughes XF-11 second prototype 44-70156 airborne\" width=\"1024\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">The XF-11 was large \u2014 a 101 ft span, twin-boom photo-reconnaissance aircraft often mistaken for an oversized P-38. Public domain<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The aircraft was fine. The programme was not.<\/h2>\r\n<p>The second prototype settled the engineering question. With conventional single four-bladed propellers \u2014 the same units fitted to the P-61 Black Widow \u2014 Hughes flew 44-70156 from Muroc Dry Lake on 5 April 1947 without incident. The USAAF had initially refused to let him near it, and relented only after a personal appeal to Generals Ira Eaker and Carl Spaatz and five million dollars in posted security.<\/p>\r\n<p>It did not matter. The war the XF-11 was designed for had ended two years earlier. The type was redesignated XR-11 in 1948, scrapped, and dropped from the USAF inventory in November 1949. Total cost to the government: $14,155,235.<\/p>\r\n<p>The programme also became a centrepiece of the Truman Committee hearings, which established among other things that a Hughes employee had spent $169,661 entertaining Army Air Forces officers.<\/p>\r\n<p>Hughes was flying his own prototype because he believed a designer should be the one to take the risk. On 7 July 1946 he very nearly paid the price he had described \u2014 for a fault that was not his design at all.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y1aKNy7hBV4\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: -8px; font-style: italic;\">Universal Newsreel coverage of the crash and its aftermath.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BwarUz5CNv0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: -8px; font-style: italic;\">A closer look at the engineering behind the failure.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"display: flex; justify-content: center; margin: 2em 0;\">\r\n<blockquote class=\"reddit-embed-bq\" data-embed-height=\"500\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/WeirdWings\/comments\/1htsr2v\/hughes_xf11_reconnaissance_aircraft_during_a_1947\/\">Hughes XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft during a 1947 test flight<\/a><\/blockquote>\r\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.reddit.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: UNLV Libraries Howard Hughes Digital Collection; Ren\u00e9 Francillon, McDonnell Douglas Aircraft since 1920; Bartlett &amp; Steele, Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness; Jane\u2019s All the World\u2019s Aircraft 1947; Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f0f4ff; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 16px 20px; margin: 32px 0 8px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 8px; font-weight: 600; color: #333;\">Post correlati<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/neil-williams-zlin-atterraggio-rovesciato-con-ali-ripiegate-1970\/\">He Folded His Wing Back On - In Mid-Air<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/most-expensive-aircraft-program-failures\/\">L&#039;aereo pi\u00f9 costoso che non \u00e8 mai arrivato<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/gee-bee-model-r-super-sportster-racer-doolittle\/\">Il Gee Bee: un motore volante che terrorizzava i suoi piloti.<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every gauge said the engine was fine. Half of one propeller had reversed, and Howard Hughes had no way to know it until he was already going down into Beverly Hills.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":6569145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6570001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hughes XF-11: The Crash That Nearly Killed Hughes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Half of one propeller reversed and every gauge read normal. 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