Bong got in trouble with Gen. Kenny, IIRC, after buzzing Market St in San Francisco. In doing so he blew a lady’s laundry of the line. Said lady called the airbase and raised a high dungeon.
Kenny called Bong in and chewed him out and order Bong to go to the lady’s house, redo the laundry and any other chores she had as his punishment.
Bong died while performing an acceptance flight on a P-80A on August 6th, 1945. The primary fuel pump failed on takeoff and for whatever reason Bong did not switch on the back-up pump. Bong death was front page news nation wide along with the bombing of Hiroshima.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
In an emergency situation, when one has to remember to do A, B, C, D, etc, some steps can be forgotten, or done out of sequence by a pilot not intimately familiar with the plane.
My guess is Bong wasn't intimately familiar with the P-80 and when the fuel pump went out, he either mid-diagnosed the problem, was too slow reacting, or forgot what to do.