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The Elegant, Versatile, & Elusive “Twin Beech”

I finally saw the type of plane that carried my father to his death—a plane the CIA still refuses to declassify and release the crash investigation report for. Hoping to see it at the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH a few years ago, I learned it had been loaned to the Aviation Museum in Warner Robins, GA. Yesterday, on our way home from the Amelia Island Book Festival, Brenda and I stopped to see it. The following quote from my award-winning investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, captures my enduring fascination with this aircraft:

“I was there myself in September ‘65. I was the chief pilot for single-engine airplanes, not Twin Beeches like this plane, and that accident, I mean, shit, you know what, was the most covered-up crash ever! Every pilot in Air America, especially me, knew every time a guy dented something on an airplane. In this fucking thing, we lost the whole airplane, and it didn’t even make the back page of the newspaper!” Jake Wehrell, Former Air America Pilot

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By James b. Wells

JAMES B. WELLS is a retired criminology and criminal justice professor in the School of Justice Studies in the College of Justice, Safety, and Military Science at Eastern Kentucky University, and is the recipient of the 2025 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences John Howard Award, an award given intermittently, upon significant demand, to recognize an individual who has made significant and sustained contributions to the practice of corrections. A former carpenter, soldier, and correctional officer in a super-maximum-security prison and later as a researcher/planner assisting architects in prison design, he has multiple degrees, including an M.S. in Criminal Justice, a Ph.D. in Research, and an MFA in Creative Writing. He’s authored or co-authored over sixty-five books, chapters, articles, and essays, as well as over a hundred and fifty research reports for various local, state, and federal agencies. Recent essays from his research and memoir work appear or are forthcoming in Collateral Journal, About Place Journal, Wild Roof Journal, Military Experience and the Arts, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, Shift, Proud to be: Writing by American Warriors, Trajectory Journal, and From Pen to Page III: More Writings from the Bluegrass Writers Coalition.

His investigative memoir about his father's still CIA-classified death in Vietnam in 1965, titled Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, will be launched on Father's Day weekend, 2025. Links to publications, presentations, trailers, social media, blog, and other information can be found at https://jamesbwells.com. James enjoys spending much of his leisure time with his spouse on their Lexington, Kentucky farm located on the palisades of the Kentucky River, where he is an organic gardener and beekeeper.

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