Late Call editor to be honored
Col. Paul Smith to be inducted into RI Aviation Hall of Fame
The Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame will induct seven new members and recognize the contributions of two other individuals at their 17th annual ceremony and dinner to be held at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center in Cranston on Saturday, Nov. 23.
Thomas Printer (19452018) and Lyle Hogg headline the list of honorees. pilot and copilot of a commuter plane that caught fire while flying over Rhode Island on February 21, 1982. As flames burned their clothing away, and smoke choked their lungs, Prinster and Hogg remained at the controls and successfully brought the plane down for a crash landing on the frozen Scituate Reservoir. Though badly burned themselves, they assisted the passengers from the burning wreckage and led them to safety at the shore. Their actions saved 11 lives. Hogg, former chief pilot for US Airways, is now President of Piedmont Airlines.
RI Aviation Hall of Fame will also acknowledge the sacrifice of LT John Crouchley, the WWII B-24 pilot whose remains were found in Bulgaria and repatriated back for burial in RI last May. They will also honor his brother, Colonel Ted Crouchley, who served 30 years in the Air Force, starting with his own service as a B-24 bomber pilot in WWII.
The public is welcome and encouraged to attend. Tickets cost $60 each and can be obtained by emailing riahof@ aol.com, or logging in to our website at www.riahof. org. For further information, please call 401-398-1000 or 401-831-8696.
Honorees are selected by an ad hoc committee representing a number of aviation groups. The committee includes all previous inductees, such as Robert Crandall, former chairman of American Airlines; Jennifer Murray, the first woman to fly a helicopter around the world; and Apollo 8 Astronaut Bill Anders.
On February 21, 1982, Pilgrim Airlines Flight 458 took off from New York’s La Guardia Airport bound for Boston carrying ten passengers and a crew of two; the pilot, Thomas N. Prinster, and co-pilot, Lyle W. Hogg. As the plane was passing over Rhode Island a fire erupted in the cockpit due to a malfunction with the alcohol-fed de-icing system. As flames burned their clothing away, and smoke choked their lungs, Prinster and Hogg remained at the controls and successfully brought the plane down for a crash landing on the frozen
Scituate Reservoir. Though badly burned themselves, they assisted the passengers from the wreckage and led them to safety at the shore. Nine of the 10 passengers survived what otherwise could have been a total disaster.
Colorado native Thomas Prinster, a former Naval Aviator, was flying anti-submarine patrols out of Quonset Point Naval Air Station when he decided to leave the Navy in 1972. He stayed in North Kingstown and became a flight instructor and corporate pilot while awaiting the opportunity to work for a commercial airline. He had been flying for Pilgrim for three years at the time of the accident, in which he suffered serious lung damage and burns over 70% of his body.
He returned to Pilgrim briefly after a long recuperation, but then decided to pursue other interests. He went back to school and earned a masters degree in counseling. He worked as a psychoanalyst for ten years in Arizona before returning to Rhode Island later in life. Tom Prinster died August 28, 2018 in South Kingstown, RI from complications resulting from his extensive burns and lung damage.
Hogg, a Connecticut native, returned to flying a year after the accident. US Airways hired him in 1984, and he flew various aircraft including the BAC 1-11, DC-9, Boeing 737, and the Airbus. He rose through the pilot management ranks, becoming vice president of flight operations.
He later played an important role in the merger of US Airways and American Airlines. This overall body of work led him to be selected in 2015 as President of Piedmont Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines headquartered in Salisbury, MD.
In May, 1984, both men returned to the area for a ceremony to rename Ponagansett Park in their honor, and Governor Garrahy issued a proclamation declaring that date to be Prinster-Hogg Day.
Another inductee is the late Col. Paul L. Smith, (US Army Ret) (1887-1978). When the Defense Department finally authorized an aviation unit for the Rhode Island National Guard in 1939, then-Governor Vanderbilt had to find an experienced military aviator to head up this unit, the 152nd Observation Squadron. The choice was relatively easy. Woonsocket resident Paul L Smith was a Captain in the Army Reserve, and was Rhode Island’s most experienced military aviator. He had earned his wings in 1918 and had been a vocal advocate for aviation development and growth for 20 years. In announcing Smith’s selection, the Providence Journal reported: “Captain Smith, who holds the military rating of Airplane Pilot, Group 1–A and a transport rating in commercial aviation, has been active for many years in the movement to get an air squadron of its own for the Rhode Island National Guard.” Paul Smith was educated in the Woonsocket public schools, graduating from Woonsocket High School in 1915. He then attended the University of Vermont, enlisting in the air service after the US entered WWI. He earned his wings just as the war ended. Between the wars he began his career as a journalist; five years after being hired as a reporter, the Woonsocket Call made him City Editor in 1926. He continued to actively promote aviation development in the state, and in 1930 he formed a company which developed, built and operated the old Woonsocket airport. Throughout the 1930s he was also active in the campaign to modernize military aviation. He became president of the New England Air Reserve Association, and was elected to the executive board of the national Air Reserve Association. The 152nd was known as Rhode Island’s “Fighting Red Rooster Squadron”. Smith recruited a number of private pilots to join, along with several hundred other men into non-flying categories. On February 19, 1940 he was promoted to Major, and by November the unit had been called into active federal service. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Smith was transferred to Mitchel Field, Long Island to command a target towing squadron. Early in 1942 Smith served on a special commission for recruiting aviation cadets from the nation’s colleges. Later he became deputy air inspector for the first Air Force. Promoted to lieutenant colonel, he was assigned in 1944 as inspector with the 11th Air Force in Alaska. Smith flew many times up and down the Aleutian chain, and at one point he was executive officer at the airbase on Shemya—the base from which bombing raids against northern Japan were being launched. He was promoted to full colonel and served for a brief period in Texas before his release from active duty. He returned to the Woonsocket Call, and was promoted to managing editor – a job he was to hold until he retired in 1962. His active flying career spanned about 30 years. He flew practically every type of plane except the jet, which came into active service about the time he gave up flying. For some time he was regarded as the dean of aviators in Rhode Island. He was a command pilot and also held a commercial pilots license. He died July 11, 1978, at the age of 81.
Other inductees include Thomas J. Magnan, Lt. John Crouchley, Col. Ted Crouchley and Theose Tillinghast.