On June 19, 1943, a routine training flight from Sanford Naval Air Station ended in disaster when a Lockheed Ventura PV-1 twin engine medium bomber crashed in what is now Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area, killing all seven World War II airmen aboard. Sanford Naval Air Station was once filled with metal hangars holding fighter and patrol aircraft and about 1,700 women and men devoted to the war effort, where trainees lined up on the busy runway for exercises or patrols along the nearby Atlantic coastline in search of German submarines. Although the day began as a normal, hot afternoon under partly cloudy skies, at 3:00 p.m. the aircraft inexplicably spun out of control, slammed into the ground, and exploded. World War II would continue for two more years, and although this was the first plane crash at the Sanford Air Station, it was not the last.