The P-3 Orion at Brunswick Landing

We had stopped in Brunswick for breakfast when an airplane beside the road caught our attention. It stood on the grass with four propellers, broad wings, and a black nose that seemed to face anyone passing by. We had not planned to visit an air station, but there was no chance we were driving past without finding out why the plane was there.

The grounds were once part of Brunswick Naval Air Station. During the Cold War and the decades that followed, aircraft and crews based here flew maritime patrol missions. The P-3 Orion was built for long flights over water. Its crew could watch ship movements, gather information, and search for submarines far from shore. Flights like these made the P-3 a familiar part of life at the Brunswick base, even though much of its work happened beyond the sight of people on the ground. The naval air station closed in 2011, but the aircraft remained to represent the people and missions connected with it.

As we walked closer, we found that this was more than a preserved patrol plane. Its markings honor a specific aircraft and the eight men who flew aboard it. On September 22, 1978, a Patrol Squadron Eight P-3 named Town of Brunswick departed the air station on its way to an air show in Ontario, Canada. Designated LC-85, it crashed near Poland, Maine, shortly after takeoff. All eight crew members died. 

The aircraft standing at Brunswick Landing is not the one that crashed. Years later, Navy veterans and supporters of the Brunswick Naval Aviation Museum restored another P-3 and painted it in LC-85’s markings. That choice gives the memorial a remarkable presence. Visitors can walk beneath the wings, look up at the engines, and begin to understand the size of the aircraft in which those men worked. A plaque near its nose records their names, bringing the story back from the scale of the airplane to the lives lost aboard the original one.

There is another memorial nearby for Gold Star families—families who have lost a loved one in military service. Installed in 2018, it was the first marker of its kind in Maine. It asks visitors to think beyond the moment of the crash to the people who waited for the crew at home and lived with their absence afterward.

We pulled over because we were curious about a plane we had not expected to see. We left knowing why this one had been kept here and why its markings mattered. Brunswick Landing carries forward part of the town’s naval history, but this spot holds something more particular: the memory of eight men and the families and fellow service members who wanted their story to remain visible.