Paul Mantz and Buttercup Valley -- July 1965

[RJ]

This is a great website, particularly the Paul Mantz and Tallmantz Aviation pages which I read with great interest. My uncle Joe Gray knew Robert Aldrich from the 1940's when Aldrich was a second unit director and they developed a friendship while making Body and Soul . As a result Joe worked on many of Aldrich's pictures, among them Flight of the Phoenix. He was on the crew in Buttercup Valley the day Mantz was killed in 1965. I vaguely remember him talking about it back then but I was too young for it to really mean anything. And at the time, the name Paul Mantz didn't register with me. Since then I have learned what a legendary aviator he was. Unfortunately my uncle is long gone too or I would ask him many questions about the accident that day, for it was truly eyewitness to the end of a part of aviation history. Also, I read on your Mantz B-25H page about the second unit director who fell out of a camera plane during the filming of Catch 22. I did some research online and assume that it was John Jordan . At his imdb page it states that he was not wearing a harness and was sucked out of the doorway when another plane passed too close. He had lost a leg 3 years earlier while working on a James Bond film and was not as agile or surefooted with the artificial leg. He was 44. Did he actually fall from N1203?

[aerovin2]

My understanding is that it was Jordan and he did fall from N1203. As you said, he was working without a harness and was thrown out of the tail camera compartment.

Thanks for sharing the information.