Spring 2001
Report from pilot Bill Knight, who is researching this subject:

We went to Jackson (TN) this morning and met Bobby, Scott and Eric Mills. In short, we looked the piece over and compared it to our plane and believe it is a piece of the bottom of Randy's Comanche. It is strictly from the fuselage, and not from the wing as he'd thought. Actually it is from under the passenger compartment right under where Patsy would have been sitting. You can see where the wing root covered part of the piece, so part of it was above the wing, near the door, and part of it was below.

The color of the piece matches up with my color chart of the Montego Green that I got from Piper recently. Of course the finish has faded somewhat over the last 38 years, but it is still amazingly close.

The piece they had would not have had the other color of the color scheme. I was hoping we would be able to settle the color question, but not so this trip. I will eventually get it "proof" positive one of these days.

This is how they acquired the piece:  sometime in the seventies, they went near the crash site and paid an old farmer to show them around. He took them to the site. Scott was very young at that time. Scott recalled that you could still see how the timber was cleared as they came down. The path was clearly evident as it escalated from the final impact point, in a 45 degree angle, to where it started into the trees.... From his description, the plane was heading in an easterly direction as it descended into the trees. (Of course, that is opposite of Reid Bell's recollection.)

Bobby Mills is a professional treasure hunter, although he has other vocations, and has been written up in magazines on the subject. Shiloh National Civil War Battlefield hired him to search the battlegrounds. He managed to turn up a Confederate payroll chest full of Confederate money. Being more than a novice at treasure hunting, he owns some very expensive and sophisticated metal detecting equipment. He went to the site hoping to find some artifacts. At that time, the crash site was knee-deep in water in places, and swampy. I am not sure it was like that at the time of the crash. Anyway, according to Bobby and Scott, they were escorted to the site. They removed their equipment from the truck and checked everything, turning it on and so forth, as was their routine. They turned them off and went down into the final impact area. When they got to where they were ready to start looking, they turned one of them on. It would not work. They turned the second one on and it would not work. Without the equipment they could not find anything, so they returned to the truck. They had a friend who was a Tennessee State Trooper, who had come with them. He remained at the vehicle. When they told him what had happened with the equipment, he was so "spooked" that he would not go down into the bottom. Bobby and Scott tried their detectors again at the truck and they worked normally. They decided to go back down and try again. Once they got back down into the bottom they tried turning them on again and, again, they would not come on. They returned to the truck and tried them and they worked. They stopped then and there. Bobby said he is not superstitious, and does not believe in ghosts, but he could not explain why the detectors would not work in that bottom. He said he could see one acting up but not both. The equipment had never done anything like that before.

The farmer who was showing them around knew that W.J. Hollingsworth, another nearby resident at that time and at the time of the crash, had some of the plane, so he took them to see him. Mr. Hollingsworth had the engine and several pieces of the sheet metal. When Bobby told Mr. Hollingsworth what happened, he led them around to a smokehouse building and pulled a large piece of the plane out of some weeds growing up next to the building. He gave it to them and told them that, since they could not find anything at the site, he would just give them the piece. They returned home and Bobby put the piece in his garage and it stayed there since then, some 25 years.

Mr. Hollingsworth was the first person to find the crash the morning after it happened. The night before, Mr. Hollingsworth said he could hear the plane and went out to look. He said it sounded like it was circling, and thought it might be looking for a place to land. A few seconds later he heard a crash, but could not tell where the noise came from. The next morning (he and others had been looking all night), he decided to climb the nearby fire tower to have a look. From the top of the fire tower he could see what looked like debris in the trees eastward. He went down and started following Fatty Bottom until he came upon the crash....

After Jeff and I finished with Bobby, Scott and Eric, we went over to the flight service station there on the Jackson airport. We were told, when we did the March 5th flight this spring, that Bill Braese lived in Jackson and had some connection with the flight service station there. We figured he might have worked there. We went in and inquired about Bill Braese. We learned that his wife used to work there and retired about five years ago. They were gracious enough to give us his phone number. I will call him and get his statement if he is willing. He, or Leroy Neal, was the last person to see them alive.

All in all, it was well worth the trip. I asked Bobby for a small piece from it for a keepsake and he graciously gave me a small piece about 1" X 2". Bobby and Scott intend to try to find who now has the pieces they saw that day. I told them to let me know so I could go see them and document it. They assured me they would. He is looking for a buyer, and Jeff and I agree it is very likely a genuine part of the plane. We cannot prove it beyond all doubt without serial numbers. I will let you know if I learn anything else.

LATER... Scott Mills called a short while ago. He went to Camden today, as did I, but we missed each other. He started asking around about who might have some pieces of the plane. After going through several leads, he finally came upon an old man who had a piece. The man had it hanging up in a barn by ropes. It was the tail section with about the last three or four feet of the fuselage. Reid Bell had thought the Country Music Hall of Fame had it, but there is no way they could now. The tail has the "N" on it. Also he said the colors were the Montego Green and the Yukon Yellow. He could identify them because I had just shown him the Piper color chart last Sunday.

This chart from Piper shows the colors that Comanches were offered in during the 1960 model year. 

Nobody is going to be able to argue the color question anymore. This will settle a lot of questions. Persistence has paid off. I can hardly believe it! This might be the single most important find ever concerning this crash. It is probably the single largest intact piece remaining of the plane and it has the tail number on it to authenticate it. Wow! Up to now, all of the Patsy experts have been saying that the plane was green and white. We now have absolute proof otherwise! Scott bought the piece on the spot. 

On another subject, I talked to Reid Bell today and he said we got front page coverage in the Camden paper when we did the March 5th flight.

LATER... Jeff and I went down this afternoon and saw the tail section piece that Scott had called me about a month ago.

   
courtesy Eric Mills

The picture shows about the last few feet of fuselage from Randy's Comanche. The view you are seeing is of the starboard side. In layman's terms, that is the passenger side of the plane. You will note the letter "N" and you can make out a "7" and you can see part of a "0". It is hard to see from the picture, but it is there. You will note the colors are Montego Green and Yukon Yellow. He has a signed notarized statement from Mr. W.J. Hollingsworth that Mr. Hollingsworth picked these pieces up from the site on March 6, 1963 and that it was wreckage from the Patsy Cline crash. Jeff and I gave it a complete once-over and it is a genuine Comanche tail section, and we are satisfied that it is from Randy's plane. We were also able to get several serial numbers off the inside from the sheet aluminum and pulleys. I am going to see if Piper has any records that will help authenticate the piece. Scott says he is going to sell it and the other piece we looked at earlier. I am hoping I can facilitate getting someone to back acquiring it for the Country Music Hall of Fame. We will see....