Second Lieutenant Richard Lloyd Hudson, 22, of Louisville, Jefferson County, died on 30 October 1957 when the Kentucky Air National Guard F-86A Sabre Jet he was piloting crashed six miles northeast of Vevay, Indiana, at 7:55 p.m. during a routine Air Defense Command scramble. Hudson was a member of the 165th Fighter Interceptor Squadron and was on federal active duty, performing a Runway Alert flight, at the time of the crash.

Hudson enlisted in the Kentucky Air National Guard in August 1953 with the 123rd Maintenance Squadron. In November 1955 he entered Cadet Training at Travis Field in Savannah, Georgia, and received his commission as a Second Lieutenant and his pilot wings on 28 March 1957.

He had been in the air about 22 minutes when the accident occurred. An oxygen failure was thought to be responsible, causing the pilot to become unconscious. Wreckage of the plane was scattered over a half-mile area. Hudson is buried in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Section 35, Lot 81-A, Grave 1.

Louisvillian Is Killed in Jet Crash in Indiana

The Courier-Journal, Louisville, 31 October 1957, p. 1

A Kentucky Air National Guard Sabre Jet crashed and burned near Vevay, Indiana, last night, killing its 22-year-old Louisville pilot, Second Lt. Richard L. Hudson, son of a former Louisville labor leader. The cause of the crash was not immediately determined.

Hudson was on a routine round-robin training flight that was to have taken him to Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and back to Louisville. First Lt. Sam Blythe, flying as his wingman in a similar F-86A, saw Hudson's plane roll over and drop into the clouds at about 18,000 feet. The aircraft plummeted to earth within 20 yards of a farmhouse north of Vevay and buried itself 20 feet in the ground, demolishing a concrete-block milk house on impact.

Blythe said he lost radio contact with Hudson shortly after takeoff. "I noticed he was flying loose," Blythe said, "sort of weaving all over the sky." He then saw a red light in Hudson's cockpit before the plane rolled over and dropped through the clouds. "Just then I saw a large flash on the clouds. I didn't see the plane hit, but I knew it hit."

Hudson, a University of Louisville student, was married in June to the former Marilyn Perkins. Col. Verne Yahne, base detachment commander for the 123rd Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, called him "an excellent pilot, one of the best young pilots we've had." Hudson had accumulated more than 200 hours of jet flying time. Survivors include his wife, his parents, and two brothers, Robert C. and Herbert W. Hudson.