Paul Mantz was one of Hollywood's premiere stunt pilots. He flew in many movies, doing the dangerous stunt flying. He met his end during the filming of "Flight of the Phoenix," starring Richard Attenborough and James Stewart.

The film featured the crash of a  Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar in the Arabian desert. The survivors try to build a makeshift aircraft out of the wreckage in order to fly out. Mantz flew one of two models made for the movie, and died when it crashed. The movie was dedicated to him.

Paul Mantz' death

Good movie. Didn't they make a remake of it....sucked I believe.

Vince

Yes, the remake wasn't too good. There was one good quote I remember from it: "If you can't give a man something to love... give him something to do" or some such. It was about motivating the group to work together.

Paul Manz, according to the only guy I knew who flew with him, drank like a fish. What I heard was that the tox screen done after his fatal crash showed a blood alcohol level of 0.20.

You can see in the movie that the empenage broke off just as he touched down.  

Did they even do tox screenings back then?

Fairchild C-82 Packet was the original 1965 aircraft. TWA had one flying around replacement engines for it's Connie fleet.