On the night of March 26, 1944, three B-24 aircraft left Chatham Field in Savannah, Georgia, on a training flight in loose formation. Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, two of the planes went down without sending a distress signal. The third B-24 developed engine trouble and lost power in three engines. As the fourth engine began to fail, the crew attempted to land at Melbourne Naval Air Station, now Melbourne International Airport. The aircraft crashed just west of the Florida East Coast Railroad tracks, north of the Eau Gallie River, narrowly missing the government housing development called Sunset Terrace. Basil R. Huntress was the only survivor and spent three months in the hospital at Melbourne Naval Air Station. He returned to the Eau Gallie area in 1995 to revisit the site. An investigation later determined that the plane had been sabotaged.