“The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind forward.” — Igor Sikorsky, aviation pioneer
Frank Blazich had an idea.
Civil Air Patrol’s national historian emeritus as well as national curator for the Col. Louisa S. Morse Center for CAP History and curator of modern military history at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, Blazich wanted to have a modern piece of CAP history placed in a prominent museum.
Conversations with the now-deceased CAP national historian emeritus, Col. Leonard Blascovich, and Col. John Swain, CAP’s government relations director, gave the idea lift. Blascovich specifically targeted N9344L — the Cessna 172 Skyhawk flown over the World Trade Center on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the 9-11 attacks there.
The Cessna — known as “44 Lima” — was the first nonmilitary aircraft allowed over New York City after the attacks grounded air traffic.
The CAP crew — Lt. Col. Jacques Heinrich and then-Capts. Andrew Feldman and Warren Ratis — were the first airborne witnesses to the devastation wrought by two hijacked airliners that struck the Twin Towers.
The aircraft is now on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base northeast of Dayton, Ohio, where it has resided since September.
Blazich worked nearly a decade to find the historic Cessna a home. Fortuitously, at the time he, Blascovich, and Swain discussed the idea, Blazich had recently been hired by the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum, where he was learning the ropes of museum operations and gaining insight on how to navigate the donation process.
For Blazich, getting 44 Lima into a museum involved more than the obvious benefit of historic preservation.
“Having a contemporary CAP aircraft in a museum provides visitors an invaluable element of public awareness about [CAP] and its service to the nation while ensuring this message will be conveyed not merely while the aircraft is on display for the present, but generations to come,” Blazich said.
Blazich first approached the Air Force museum after completing a successful presentation — and its small mountain of paperwork — to Congress as part of CAP’s efforts to receive the Congressional Gold Medal for its World War II volunteer service.
But the Air Force museum turned down the proposed donation. The story was the same with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, which didn’t reply to Blazich’s inquiries. Lt. Col. Philip Saleet, now-deceased assistant national historian, worked to contact other potential museums but also found little interest.
The fate of 44 Lima drifted in limbo for eight years. But just as serendipity — like Blazich’s conversations with Blascovich and Swain and his work at the Seabee museum — played a role in the aircraft’s museum journey, a change in leadership and an encounter with an Air Force museum curator in Blazich’s capacity at the Smithsonian reignited the effort.
“I happened upon (the curator) during the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration’s 50th anniversary ‘Welcome Home’ event in May 2023,” he recalled.
The two exchanged business cards. Their initial discussions resulted in the Air Force museum’s Collections Management Committee agreeing to accept N9344L, at which point Blazich turned the matter over to CAP National Headquarters.
The museum’s acceptance of the Cessna prompted a combination of emotions, Blazich said.
“When I learned the aircraft would be accepted for donation, I found myself enjoying a bit of adulation and relief, knowing that at last the story of and behind N9344L would finally be preserved and shared alongside those of other warbirds of American history,” he said.
It seems fitting that Blazich’s tireless efforts ended successfully at the museum, which he saw “as the ideal home for this aircraft in clear recognition of the linkage between the Air Force and CAP as the civilian auxiliary of the former,” he said.
“More than anything it seemed that the best place for this aircraft would be alongside those of ‘Ma Blue.’”
For Blazich, it was another achievement in a life of fascination with aviation history. His late father, Frank Blazich, Sr., had a deep interest in military history, notably aviation. He shared that love with his son.
“While I never flew on an aircraft until my junior year of high school, I enjoyed aviation history from an early age, in part due to its integral nature to the American historical arc and the meritocracy entwined in its development and expansion,” said the Raleigh, North Carolina, native, whose interest in the subject led to an academic focus on CAP’s World War II coastal patrol base mission, in turn culminating in a 2020 volume published by Air University Press, “An Honorable Place in American Air Power”: Civil Air Patrol Coastal Patrol Operations, 1942-1943.
Like Blazich, curators at the Ohio museum saw that 44 Lima was no ordinary civilian aircraft. Because of the events of 9-11 and the mission of the Cessna and its crew, it represented something more, Blazich said.
“Compared to the high-performance military aircraft aloft on Sept. 12, 2001,” he said,” the humble CAP Cessna seemed an appropriate representation of so many Americans on that day — humble and capable, wanting to do their part for the nation’s safety and well-being.”
He added, “The importance of the artifact/aircraft was never in doubt, but the challenge lay in convincing other museum professionals that the aircraft was worthy of the work and long-term costs to ensure preservation so its story could be shared to enlighten and inspire visitors.”
Blazich hopes that on viewing the gleaming blue-and-white aircraft with red-and-gray piping, museum visitors experience a deep feeling, the same sense that courses through the heart of Civil Air Patrol.
“That service to America is within us all, when and should we be asked to answer the nation’s hour of need.”_____Paul SouthContributing Writer
