On June 3, 1963, a heartbreaking and mysterious story quietly began at McChord Air Force Base aboard a Northwest Airlines DC-7.
It’s a story 61 and a half years later still has no end.
17-year-old Bruce Barrowman was a newly trained Army soldier, slinging a loaded duffel bag over his shoulder as he shook hands with his 9-year-old brother Greg on the tarmac.
“Be a man,” Bruce advised as he tipped his hat and joined 101 people in saying goodbye to the people they loved before boarding the plane that morning. The flight was headed to a military base in Anchorage, where Bruce and most of the passengers would have been stationed during the dawn of the Cold War.
58 soldiers, together with 22 family members, put on their seat belts. Mixed with uniformed members of the Army, Coast Guard and Air Force were their wives and children. Up front, a Seattle-based flight crew of six, four men and two women, prepared the cabin for takeoff.
Two and a half hours after leaving the tarmac at McChord, Flight 293 disappeared and all 101 souls on board.
Below the plane’s last reported altitude of 13,000 feet, the vast Gulf of Alaska raged. There was no distress call from the flight crew. There was no sign of trouble or dangerous weather, and except for the glow of a rainbow coloring the waves, there was no sign of the plane anywhere in the water. Left behind were the surviving families and friends of 101 people who were mysteriously lost at sea.
“Included is my relative, Bruce Barrowman,” John Barrowman said, reminding himself of his brother’s dedication to service. “He was a soldier aboard on his first assignment from Fort Ord California to Fort Richardson, Alaska.”
Greg Barrowman’s big brother was a friendly, athletic, and ambitious high school student who had become a soldier and was not old enough to drive until a year before Flight 293.
“I was eight and pushing nine,” Bruce said. “My favorite clown JP Patches was on KIRO 7 that afternoon. I remember a flash alert appeared on the screen. The voice said there had been an incident involving a flight. They said it was 293 leaving McChord Air Force Base.”
Greg heard his brother Bruce’s name in the report, prompting him to alert his parents, who were arguing in the kitchen. Days later, his family received a telegram. Bruce was officially considered “killed” by the US government.
Days afterward, fragments of the plane, mangled seat cushions and personal items were found, but no people. The official crash reports provided maintenance data without any significant issues. It offered no clues as to why the plane could suddenly sink 13,000 feet before sinking a mile below the ocean’s surface.
“Everyone had the same question I talked to,” Greg said. “What happened?”
Greg says that because it was a chartered aircraft and not a military aircraft, the Department of Defense never contacted the surviving families again, beyond initial regrets and condolences. Investigators wrote a brief report, closed the case and declined to answer questions.
Bruce Barrowman was never considered ‘Missing in Action’ because there was no action or fight. Greg’s family tapped the military for a memorial flag that his parents paid for. Then they buried an empty coffin in Renton.
“I’d like to see if we can at least see how it happened,” Greg said. “If an engine fails or a loose propeller. Because a year earlier a plane had crashed in the same area, and everyone survived. It was like a Sully Sullenberger landing in the water.”
Sixty years after the crash, Greg and the surviving families raised their own money to build and install their own memorial at Tahoma National Cemetery. Greg had shared his story with Feliks Banel, KIRO Radio’s resident historian, who turned an in-depth investigation into an eight-episode podcast called “Unsolved Histories.” It raises many new questions about a very old case. It questions the military’s responsibility to reopen and consider the case Why the lives sacrificed for the country have never been officially commemorated. It also investigates the remote possibility of the plane being accidentally shot down.
The timeless memorial notes that while lives like Bruce Barrowman’s are missing – and dearly missed – they are not forgotten.
“I believe in the seven to 10 minutes they had on the flight before it actually crashed, they made their peace with God,” Greg said. “And that’s true, well, that’s true for me too. And I hope to be reunited again.’
Before that, Greg prays for the only peace that finding the truth will bring.
