McDill crash scene photo on Shorpy

[Eclipse]

This popped up a few days ago on Shorpy:


http://www.shorpy.com/node/15031
(The full-sized image is quite large and very detailed.

"Nov. 9, 1938. Washington, D.C. "Two killed in Army plane crash. Two U.S. Army fliers -- Lieut. Col. Leslie MacDill, General Staff Corps Officer, and Private Joseph G. Gloxner, were burned to death today in the worst aerial tragedy in the history of the Capital when their plane crashed in the street in Anacostia, a short distance from Bolling Field. Three automobiles were wrecked in the crash. Col. MacDill was piloting the plane."

Are those bombs or some other kind of similar ordnance in the back of the frame there?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_MacDill

The plane he was flying was a BC-1, an early varient of what ultimatly became the venerable T-6 Texan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_T-6_Texan

[SarDragon]

They don't look like ordnance. Maybe storage canisters of some sort? I was unable to find a sufficiently detailed AT-6 cutaway to get an idea of original position or configuration.

[MSG Mac]

They don't look like ordnance. Maybe storage canisters of some sort? I was unable to find a sufficiently detailed AT-6 cutaway to get an idea of original position or configuration.

If there were any kind of ordinance, they wouldn't have been lifting the a/c, and all those onlookers would have been at least 1/2 mile away.