071024 Phil Bearly

Episode Transcript

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We are welcome to the program.Nice to have you here. Final hour

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of today's award winning show. Jimmyis my name? You want to jump
in, I'll take some emails.I'll read some Jimmy Lakey at iHeartMedia dot
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fan page. Build the whole thingout Twitter, Truth Social those sites are
just my name. J I MM Y L A K E Y.

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Glad to have you here on theshow. I'm excited for this next guest.
It's a moment of look back inhistory to nineteen fifty nine. If
I, me and Phil Bairlee wasit was just a wee tike. But
some events happened on that day thatI wasn't aware of it until a couple
of weeks ago. But there wasa plane crash leaving the Denver staple to
the airport, and it happened rightover what we now what is Firestone,

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Colorado, and building a neighborhood therecalled Barefoot Lakes. It happened right in
that area, but debris was spreadfor a long place. Let me get
Phil Barely on the program. Herehe is on the hotline Phil, Welcome
to the show. Thanks for thetime today. Jimmy, thank you for
talking to me. Well, let'stalk about that day, and I believe
November nineteen fifty nine you were justa wee boy. Your family has deep

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roots in the area. Talk aboutyour experience that day. Let's start there.
Well, this was November one,nineteen fifty five, not fifty nine,
nineteen fifty five. I was fiveand a half years old. My
dad was the manager of Johnson's Corner. He picked him and my mom picked

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a location for Joe Johnson in nineteenfifty and fifty one, and my dad
ran up for the first twenty sixyears. We were on the way to
my grandmother's birthday, which was Novemberfirst, in North Longmont. We were
about half a mile north of Longmont. There was a tremendous flash in the
sky that lit it up just likeit is outside bright. It was off

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to the southeast. We were onHighway twenty seven, just north of Longmont.
At first, week said is ita meteor? I mean, I'm
five and a half years old.My older brother was three years older than
me. And then we saw thesecond part of the flash four seconds later,
and that was the thousands of gallonsof airplane fuel that was on the

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plane catching fire and trailing fire tothe ground almost vertically. My dad,
being civic minded, Johnson's Corner wasthe only place open in northern Colorado at
that time at night, and mydad said, something terrible has happened.

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So we just dropped off the packagesand the cake at my aunt and uncle's
house in Longmont, and we headedeast to the crash site. We could
see the flaming wreckage. I mean, as a small child, I'll never
forget it. We pulled up tothe corner of the field. It was
about half to three miles three quartersof a mile east of what is now

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I twenty five and just about aquarter to half a mile south of Highway
sixty six. They's burning wreckage inthe field. My dad got out to
see and he just told us tostay in the car. We could see
flaming wreckage everywhere. I distinctly remember, and this has etched in my mind,

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a pair of seats. You couldjust see the silhouettes of the people
still strapped in the seats. Theywere almost sitting up, as if it
was just normal people sitting in achair amid all these flaming debris. Wow.
And at the time, I'm justa kid. I didn't know.

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But my dad got out and startedhelping. Well, at that point he
knew most of the law enforcement peoplein northern Colorado. I knew a Johnson's
Corner and he finally a deputy sharefor someone local. This was clear out
in the middle of nowhere, almostthe Mead Fire Department, volunteer and Platteville

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and that all started responding. Butit takes a while to get mobilized.
And they mobilized the Longmont Division ofthe Colorado National Guard. But it takes
time to get those people there.But my dad helped establish the perimeter.
They actually had him stay at theintersections of some of the roads and as

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my dad told me later, thatsomeone actually issued him a firearm and he
was ordered to tell people to turnaround, don't get out of their cars
because there was massive people starting lootingalready in nineteen fifty five, looters show
up. Now, where did thelooters come from? It was very rural
area and any anywhere people driving byon the highways that saw this. We

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even heard that there was looters fromlocal colleges or towns that come out there
to the crash site and they werepicking up wallatsu. There was I won't
even describe some of the any humanitythat they were doing to dead people.
Wow, let me reset the tablebeing artifacts. Let me reset here.

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It's the voice of Phil Bareley.We're talking about a plane crash that happened
in nineteen fifty five. United AirlinesFlight six two nine headed from Denver Stapleton
up towards Seattle and it blew upin mid air. So you're on the
on the crash site and your dadhelps establish the perimeter, and then we'll

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come back to the crash site ina second. But for those who don't
know what happened, how did thisplane explode? It was it was blown
up. But explain that. Okay, I'll only mention the guy's name one
time because I don't want to giveany credit to this monster. But his
name was John or Jack Gilbert Graham. He put twenty five sticks of dynamite

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on a timing device in his mother'ssuitcase at Stapleton Airport. She was on
a flight that was going to goto Portland in Seattle and then she was
going on to Alaska. He hatedher they had been in a lot of
disputes. He was a no goodif you want to use the simple term.

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He was under indictment or whatever forstealing paychecks from his employer. He
had tried insurance fraud. He hadbeen at AWL when he was still in
the Coastguard. He bought a thirtyseven thousand, five hundred dollars life insurance
policy from a vending machine at StapletonAirport. He also bought two other policies

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that were either sixty two hundred andfifty dollars or seventy five hundred dollars depending
on the sources, and those werewith his assisters and his aunt has beneficiaries.
But at the last minute he puthis mom at the plane and he
packed the twenty five sticks of dynamitein our suitcase. They actually had to

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pay a few dollars extra because thesuitcase was heavy, but nobody checked him
at that time, and so itgot put on the plane in cargo hold
number four, which was in therear of the plane, forward of the
tail. The plane was delayed,had been delayed for a couple of reasons,
and he wanted the plane to blowup over the mountains in northern Colorado

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southern Wyoming, so that they couldn'tfind the wreckage or piece it together.
It was delayed so it blew upover essentially the town of Firestone. Now,
the wreckage went across six miles andthe tail blew off of the plane

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and it literally landed. It glideddown and landed in a farmer's field about
a mile and a half south ofthe main crash site. Wow, Now
you told me that there's like themean Fire Department, they still find pieces
of this plane and there's buckets ofit that are there that nobody knows what
to do with. There's still bucketsof this wreckage or nineteen fifty five,

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And that's what we're wanting to do, is we're wanting to establish a really
nice memorial to those forty four peoplewho died, innocent people, and we're
trying to determine they have to be. I reassembled that plane in a hangar
in Denver, but there's still piecesof that that turn up. We've been

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talking to me and they didn't knowwhat to do with it. I'd like
to myself, since I'm on thecommittee to do this, I'd like to
embed it maybe in a memorial orsomething like that, or make it displayable
either at the Mead Museum or FirestoneMuseum or somewhere. These are small pieces.

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The plane went vertically in it madea huge crater in the ground.
Now you said this that the reallywhat now the neighborhood or subdivision of Barefoot
Lakes that area is is the crashsite. And you're working and already talked
to the town of Firestone about designatingsome parcel to put a memorial to memorialize

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the forty four that died in flightsix two nine. How have they given
the land? Do we have theland yet? Are you still in process?
I'll figure that out. We're stillin the process of working all of
that out. Uh, there's alot of entities involved. The city of
Longmont was deeply involved, me wasJohnstown or Firestone really hadn't hardly formed at

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that point. Platteville the police wasdeeply involved. They sent officers out to
help get the established the perimeter there. There's miles of roads that they had
to shut off, and they activatedthe Colorado National Guard out of Camp George,

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West, which, interestingly enough,my father in law of fifty two
years he's passed away now, buthe was in the Colorado National Garden got
sent to that site. So mydad and my father in law were both
on that side amazingly, and yourdad was running Johnson's Corner, and he
made sure that they had coffee andall the food they needed down there in
the on the site for all thepeople that were working it. Yeah,

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the minute we was able to leavethe site at about I don't know,
I guess one thirty in the morning, Dad went back to Johnson's Corner and
called in off duty cooks to reportearly. And he called all of suppliers
for all kinds of stuff coffee,all kinds of our food, potato chips
and pop and hamburger meat or whatever, and he put people to work and

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for two days he did nothing buthaul food in boxes down to feed those
crash survivors Army and those crash upthe emergency response people. Uh. And
so he fed them. And amonth later the head of the State Patrol

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called my dad and called him toDenver and presented him with a letter.
I have the letter in my handthanking my dad, Clayton Barley, and
Johnson's Corner for their invaluable help duringthat crisis. Everything was spread out.
There's no phone lines that the phonecompany had to make hang lines. They

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the Armory and Greedy at the airportbecame the Morgue Uh. They made the
head of the investigation team at theImperial Hotel in Longlant. I believe it
was it was a main Colorado event, but it also it also was nationwide
implications because this was the first timethat anyone in the United States had ever

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bombed a commercial airliner out of theair by an onboard device. It was
also the first time that they triedthe defendant and allowed TV cameras in the
courtroom. Under the judge's control,he could hit a button and turn on
and off the camera and that wasthe first time historically. Well, looking

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out our TSA. All of thiskind of started with that, and even
they even used the forensics in thelockerby bombing the FBI did to try and
determine it. Now I've met andon our committee is Conrad and Martha Hopp.
They're in their late eighties. Itwas their fields that the plane crashed

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on. It was on his fatherand the hile and the file farm,
and they went out and drove ringsaround the bodies with their pickups and covered
them with sheets to identify the band Conrad was eighteen years old at the
time. Wow, Phil, andMartha her and her dad did the same
thing too, And there was alot of wonderful people that showed up to

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help and on in the contrast wasthere was a lot of neer do well
people who were there just to loose. Phil, what surprised me? Yeah,
well, let me jump in beforewe run short on time. I
want to remind people. Phil Baarreleyis my guest and he's on a committee
that they're working to put a memorialup on the site of near the site

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of ground zero Worth flight six tonine crashed. United Flight six to nine
crashed and now what we know isFirestone Colorado and that was in nineteen fifty
five. Forty four people died inthe domestic bombing blow up of that airplane.
You just heard the story. Phil. Before we run short on time,
you're trying to Your committee is raisingsome money and on August the third,

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seven to nine pm at the RialtoTheater there's going to be a concert
for the and if it's in proceedswill start funding this memorial. If folks
want to learn more. It's uh, Christine Alice, I believe in the
Canyon Echoes is going to be playingreal quick at plug this event. And
how do folks get involved? Yes, well, uh, we we have

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a GoFundMe. It's a six flightsix two nine memorial. There's also a
website of flight six to nine Memorialdot org. And also if people want
to individually uh sand checks, theycan send them to Flight six two nine
Memorial in care of Martha Hopf whois a witness. She's she's doing that

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and her address is one one fourone three well to County Road thirteen,
Longmont, Colorado, eight oh fivefour. The website again is Flight six
nine Memorial dot O. RG.Philiberry, I appreciate you in demin,
folks and learn more about this eventthere as well. Appreciate you hopping on.

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We're gonna run short on time,but Phil Barely is my guest.
And again, this is a nineteenfifty five airplane crash. How many of
you knew about that one? Ibet you didn't. But it's again flight
six two nine Memorial dot org.You can learn more and there is a
fundraising concert event Memorial Concert on Augustthe third, some live music at the
rialto theater and you can learn moreabout that at the at the website Flight

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six to nine Memorial dot com.And there you have it. It's a
fascinating story back in history, andthe eyewitnesses telling the story is just absolutely
tremendous. All right, good tohave you here on the radio show.
So I said, we're about shorton time here in that segment, if
you want to jump in. Finalword of today's show eight six six triple
eight fifty four forty nine. Eightysix six triple eight fifty four forty nine.

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Everybody ready for the hot weather proofs. I'm looking at the forecast here
just a moment ago, very veryhot weather. We'll come back to the
next segment. I'll play some moreof this up. Well, I'll replay
if you missed it. Michael beIt goes on CNN, and I don't
think he wanted to, but hedid. And he goes on and talking
about his thoughts on the Joe Bidensaga that's out there. Also will continue

(16:11):
talking about Donald Trump's running mate.I think here's still three or four days
from getting an announcement on that,but I could be wrong, but there's
lots still to come. Here onthe radio show. You don't want to
miss it. Oh, Vladimir Selensky, he's in Washington right now. He's
got a he's got he's got anempty suitcase asking to take home some more
cash. Yeah, I'll be backLakey on the radio, Good Morning Colorado,

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final half hour coming up, sixhundred k c O l