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580798 Maj. William J. Vinopal

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F-106A 58-0798 of the 94th FIS Selfridge AFB MI with Maj. William J. Vinopal, aged 36, of Mauston, Wisconsin, who was killed in a crash on June 13, 1966 in this aircraft. The 13-year Air Force veteran flying with the co-located 71 FIS at Selfridge. In Dec 2017 the Lake Huron Exploration group began searching Lake Huron to repatriate his lost remains. Information Courtesy of Donald Maury/Lake Huron Exploration. Photo by Steve Hann who still Has original negative of this photo. Crashed 25 miles N-NE of the base into Lake Huron, MI. Pilot Maj William J. Vinopal, 37 of Mauston, Wisconsin flying with the co-located 71st FIS at Selfridge AFB MI in 1966, was killed during ejection. The aircraft wreckage and Maj Vinopal’s remains were never recovered. However, around Memorial Day 2017 a group called "Lake Huron Exploration" with a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/LakeHuronExploration/ began to search for the aircraft and the majors remains. On the day of the crash 13 Jun 1966, a young George Beebe who was working on the roof of a hospital saw the powerless F-106 gliding low over Lake Huron with a faint trail of smoke following. As it disappears out of his sight, Beebe scrambled to alert the nearby Coast Guard station about a potential downed aircraft. Now, over 50 years later, a group of veterans – including George Beebe, now 85, and his nephew, John are on a mission to locate the wreckage and recover Vinopal’s remains. Along with his uncle George, John Beebe, 56, a retired Michigan Air National Guard technical sergeant, brought together the Lake Huron Exploration group of Air Force and Navy veterans.