On December 16, 1953, a Navy Typhoon Tracker aircraft was lost while on a routine reconnaissance mission into Typhoon Doris in the western Pacific. The PBY Privateer airplane with its nine man crew was flying out of Agana Naval Air Station on Guam and had begun its initial eye penetration at sub-cloud level (the common practice for Navy Typhoon Trackers) when its radio transmission abruptly ceased. A nine-day rescue effort began, which led to other tragedies when two other planes involved in the search crashed. A Navy DC-3 flying out of the Mariannas struck a volcano on Agrihan with all ten crew members dying, and an Air Force B-29 out of Andersen Field on Guam struck military housing and a school near the airfield killing 29 people, both aircrew and people on the ground. No sign or debris from the lost Typhoon Tracker airplane was ever found.
The nine crewmen lost during the flight into Typhoon Doris were:
Pilot Cmdr. J. W. Newhall
Co-pilot Lt. S. B. Marsden
Lt. Cmdr. D. Zimmerman Jr.
Ltjg. F. Troescher Jr.
AL1 F. R. Barnett
AD1 J. N. Clark
AD3 E. L. Myer
AL2 N. J. Stephens
AO3 A. J. Stott