George Alan May
Agency patch
Major

George Alan May

Accident
End of Watch September 17, 1971
Age 36
Tour of Duty 2 yrs 3 mo
The Vigil Panel 109 ›
Gender Male

Incident

Major George A. May was killed when his plane crashed while transporting an escaped inmate from Oregon to Texas.

Major May and his co-pilot, Major Robert A. Arrington, flew a Texas Department of Corrections airplane to Oregon to pick up an inmate who escaped from a Texas prison on March 31, 1970 and was captured in Oregon. The officers stopped in Pueblo, Colorado, back to Huntsville, Texas. On the morning of September 17, 1971, the TDC plane left the airport and crashed around 9:04 a.m., 15-25 miles southwest of Fowler in Pueblo County, Colorado. All three men were killed. The airplane flew into a late summer storm that dropped the earliest snowfall in the Pueblo area since record-keeping in 1888. Search planes were delayed because of low visibility.

Major May served with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division for over two years.

Survivors

He was survived by his wife.

In Our Keeping

Permanent identifier
BO-US-TX-9F0535EF
Stewardship
Maintained by NeuraWeb Global Inc.
Added to badge.nw
April 2, 2026
Last updated
July 23, 2026

Honored here by 1 sentinel - 1 tribute.

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Tributes

I never knew you. I am standing here anyway.
Major May gave the Texas Department of Criminal Justice 2 years.
Thank you for your service to the Huntsville community. Gone but never to be forgotten.
Rest easy, Major May.

— S. Vincent Anthony, U.S. Army 1985-1993

Agency

Location Huntsville, TX
Platform Identity tdcjcidcorr.walker.tx.us.gov.nw

Service Record

End of Watch September 17, 1971
Tour of Duty 2 yrs 3 mo
Age 36
Gender Male

Incident Details

Cause Accident

Major George Alan May is one of 10,088 officers lost to accidents in the line of duty across the full record of this memorial — 31% of all 32,508 officers honored here.

In TX, 653 of 2,421 officers were lost to accidents in the line of duty — 27% of this state's fallen. That is 4 percentage points below the national rate of 31%.

At Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division, 32 of 124 officers on record were lost to accidents in the line of duty — 25.8% of this agency's fallen.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division
32
of 124 officers
25.8% Accident
TX — Statewide
653
of 2,421 officers
27% Accident
Nationwide
10,088
of 32,508 officers
31% Accident

National Cause Distribution

How Accident compares to all causes of officer death in the memorial record. George Alan May's cause is highlighted.

Felonious
17,623 (54.2%)
Accident
10,088 (31%)
Illness
2,974 (9.1%)
Cardiac
1,306 (4%)
Undetermined
260 (0.8%)
Suicide
256 (0.8%)
vehicular
1 (0%)

How George Alan May Compares

Age at End of Watch
36
This officer
Avg for Accident: 38.1 years
Years of Service
2.2
This officer
Avg for Accident: 9.1 years

When Accident Deaths Occur

Monthly distribution of Accident deaths across the full memorial record. George Alan May is highlighted in Sep.

Jan
820
Feb
730
Mar
748
Apr
707
May
847
Jun
795
Jul
897
Aug
937
Sep
913
Oct
925
Nov
872
Dec
897