At 11:20 a.m. on March 31, 1972, a 306th Bombardment Wing B-52D Stratofortress bomber stationed at nearby McCoy Air Force Base, now Orlando International Airport, crashed after departing minutes earlier for a mock bombing exercise over Statesboro, Georgia. The unarmed aircraft sustained multiple engine failures and an engine fire, and while the crew attempted to return to McCoy for an emergency landing, it crashed 3,220 feet short of the runway. The impact carved a 150-foot crater, and about 40,000 gallons of fuel ignited, burning much of a two-block residential area adjacent to the crash site. Seven Air Force crewmen were killed: pilot Capt. Wendell W. Campbell, co-pilot Capt. Barry E. Applebee, radar-bombardier Maj. James J. Hammons, navigator 1st Lt. Robert Heatherly, electronic warfare officer Maj. William E. Kesler, gunner M. Sgt. Allen H. Murray, and instructor-navigator Lt. Col. George M. Gamache. Eight civilians on the ground were injured, including 10-year-old Anthony Ellington, who died three days later in a military hospital in San Antonio, Texas, with burns over 80 percent of his body. The accident remains the worst plane crash in Central Florida history.