Craig D. Button
Craig David Button was a United States Air Force captain who died when he crashed a Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft under mysterious circumstances on 2 April 1997. During the incident, Button inexplicably flew hundreds of miles off-course without radio contact, appeared to maneuver purposefully and did not attempt to eject before the crash. His death is regarded as a suicide because no other hypothesis adequately explains the events. The incident caused widespread public speculation about Button's intentions and whereabouts until the crash site was found three weeks later. The aircraft carried live bombs which have not been recovered.
Biography
Craig Button graduated from Wantagh High School in Wantagh, Long Island, New York. He began flying at age 17 and aspired to be a professional pilot. Button was described as "polite", "quiet" and a "perfectionist" who "rarely drank and never smoked". One of his instructors remarked that his shoes were always shined. Button's next-door neighbor growing up reports that he was "a ridiculously hard worker".Button's father, Richard Button, was a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force. His mother, Joan Button, was a devout Jehovah's Witness. According to a letter written by Button, she raised him "to think that joining the military is wrong" and refused to allow him to wear his college Air Force Reserve [Officer Training Corps] uniform at home. Button's half-sister, Susane, reported that his mother had wanted him to leave the military.
Button was commissioned through the AFROTC program at New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, New York, where he received a degree in aerospace engineering in 1990. He spent four years at the Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas as a Cessna T-37 Tweet first assignment instructor pilot before being transferred to the 355th Fighter Wing, a Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II unit at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona. He had been a USAF pilot for five years before the crash.
Events of April 2, 1997
On April 2, 1997, Button took off in his single-seat A-10 attack aircraft on a training mission with two other A-10s from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. His jet was armed with 4 Mark 82 bombs, 60 magnesium flares, and 120 metal chaff canisters, and its GAU-8 Avenger gun was loaded with 575 rounds of 30-millimeter ammunition. This training mission would have been the first time Button dropped live ordnance.Near Gila Bend, Arizona, after being refueled in-flight, Button unexpectedly broke formation. He flew in a northeasterly direction towards the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. His jet was spotted numerous times by observers on the ground. One observer, an off-duty pilot, said the jet appeared to maneuver around bad weather. This observation suggested to the USAF that the aircraft was being flown manually and purposefully. Button's flight was tracked by radar in Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Denver, but because the transponder in the aircraft was not operating it was only tracked, not identified. It was only after analyzing radar data later that investigators were able to track Button's flight.
Button's aircraft zig-zagged near the end of its flight. It was last spotted in the air about west of Denver. The jet impacted terrain about SW of Vail, Colorado, on Gold Dust Peak in a remote part of Eagle County. The USAF concluded the jet probably had two to five minutes of fuel remaining when it crashed. The impact occurred at about of elevation, just below the summit. The debris field was over a quarter-mile-square area. Pieces of the canopy and cockpit went over a ridge.