Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Fire Destroys Yankee Air Museum in Willow Run

10. October 2004 • Murph
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The Yankee Air Museum’s hanger at the Willow Run Airport burned down last night, with smoke visible as far away as Saline (livejournal).

From the Museum’s website:

The Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run Airport suffered a disastrous fire last night that destroyed the historic hangar that housed the museum. The museum staff was able to move the historic B-17, C-47 and B-25 aircraft out of the building, thus saving the heart of the collection. In addition, all the historic aircraft on display outside of the main building were untouched by the fire. While many irreplaceable artifacts, photos and books were lost in the fire, the Volunteers at the museum are thankful that the aircraft collection remains largely intact. Only a small number of non-flyable aircraft that were in restoration inside the hanger were lost.

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  1. My son talks almost nonstop about the Yankee Air Museum. I’m not sure what to tell him, now. I have so many good memories of that place.
       —Erin Ptacek    Oct. 11 '04 - 03:19AM    #
  2. Erin, the press release on the Museum’s webpage sounds like it was far from a total loss: most of the airplanes are okay, though most of the other stuff is destroyed. So there’s still something there to see, and they’re also in the middle of (or close to the beginning of?) a $55 million or so capital campaign, which means they may not be able to do all of what they wanted to, but at least have access to resources to recover from this.
       —Murph    Oct. 11 '04 - 09:54AM    #
  3. check out the post on seat of the revolution about the fire, he has clues to the cause of the fire

    http://seat.defcode.com/index.php?title=fire_departments_cause_fire_at_yankee_ai&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#comments
       —Just a Voice    Oct. 11 '04 - 12:59PM    #