Born: 14 April 1921, United States
Died: 16 April 1944
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is republished from HistoryLink.org, in line with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Thirty-eight pilots in the WASP program were killed in training or on mission flights. Since the women pilots were not actually in the military, they had no benefits, not even burial coverage. For a number of those killed, fellow pilots contributed to ship the body home for burial. Often another pilot would accompany the body to the deceased pilot’s hometown. The deaths included five Washington women.
Jayne Elizabeth Erickson (1921-1944) had a collision over the Avenger Field training base in Texas while on an April 16, 1944, solo flight. Erickson was born in Seattle and moved with her family to Preston, Washington. She attended Preston High School and majored in art at the University of Washington. She moved to Yakima and took flying lessons there.