How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

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Cide
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by Cide »

"Watch out for clouds, they have rocks in them." Old adage I read about pilot training in CO during WW2.
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by ltlFish99 »

we came upon 2 different crashes on hikes with the CMC.
One was the well known crash on Navajo peak.

The other was on West spanish peak.
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by Peak200 »

Omg that plane crash map is crazy
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by blazintoes »

Way back when I was chasing the centennials in 2014 I thought it was a good idea to go up Zapata for California then go up over and down into Huerfano valley for Iron Nipple and Huerfano Pk. On the way back I went up 13,577 and on California's west slopes I kept seeing something shining with the evening sun so I orphaned 13,660A and plowed down the hillside to find the Constellation aircraft wreckage just as Climbingcue experienced. I took pictures then shared with my Marc my husband who is a pilot and we found the planecrashmap website that looks a little different than I remember 8 years ago. He geeks out on this stuff and it's fun to share the pictures with him. The only way I was able to convince him to hike my centennial finisher on Adams was by dangling this carrot hunt for the trip: https://planecrashmap.com/plane/co/N3881N/
We traversed from Adams to 13,580A and he found the debris (picture)

Recently on the LA Freeway there is a ton of Curtis C46 cargo plane wreckage that is eerie to climb over.

There are two that I know of and searched for and both aren't listed on the crash map. Remember Craig Button who crashed his A-10 into Gold Dust Peak?
I hiked Pika to GD a couple months ago and immediately hiked to the north side to look for the debris that was scattered over a quarter-mile-square area. I never found any debris. Maybe I should've brought Marc. Also I assume that since this was a well equipped military aircraft armed with four Mk-82 bombs, 60 magnesium flares, 120 metal chaff canisters and 575 rounds of 30-millimeter ammunition, there's no way the military left anything behind.

The coolest debris I've found was from this crash (another military fighter) but this time I found some fuselage shrapnel: https://abc7.com/star-wars-canyon-navy- ... h/5433048/
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by dwoodward13 »

blazintoes wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:05 am Remember Craig Button who crashed his A-10 into Gold Dust Peak?
I hiked Pika to GD a couple months ago and immediately hiked to the north side to look for the debris that was scattered over a quarter-mile-square area. I never found any debris. Maybe I should've brought Marc. Also I assume that since this was a well equipped military aircraft armed with four Mk-82 bombs, 60 magnesium flares, 120 metal chaff canisters and 575 rounds of 30-millimeter ammunition, there's no way the military left anything behind.
The military searched and searched for 72 days for the bombs but never found them. So maybe there is something left behind!

There are nearly 60 witnesses that say they heard loud explosions in Arizona, Telluride, and Aspen, but the bomb racks on the plane indicate they were never dropped and no evidence was found of them where the explosions where heard.
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by Trotter »

HikerGuy wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:30 am
Scott P wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:23 am
HikerGuy wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 8:32 pm Quite a few. https://planecrashmap.com/map/co/
Strangely, most of the wrecks I know about in the mountains aren't on that map, so there must be a lot more than the map indicates.
Yeah, that map is definitely not comprehensive, it only maps fatal crashes. Still, I think it's missing some of those too. The site appears to be someone's hobby project, nice interface though.
I see quite a few nonfatal crashes in there, by just playing around with it.

But its missing the Mt massive blackhawk crash, where an army blackhawk crashed almost at the summit and killed 4 guys. There was a memorial for one of them along the route too. You can still find some little metal and plastic bits.
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by SkaredShtles »

Trotter wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:00 am
HikerGuy wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:30 am
Scott P wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:23 am

Strangely, most of the wrecks I know about in the mountains aren't on that map, so there must be a lot more than the map indicates.
Yeah, that map is definitely not comprehensive, it only maps fatal crashes. Still, I think it's missing some of those too. The site appears to be someone's hobby project, nice interface though.
I see quite a few nonfatal crashes in there, by just playing around with it.

But its missing the Mt massive blackhawk crash, where an army blackhawk crashed almost at the summit and killed 4 guys. There was a memorial for one of them along the route too. You can still find some little metal and plastic bits.
Oddly, it's missing the B-24 crash from WW2 up in the NE Wind Rivers as well...
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by Scott P »

SkaredShtles wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:37 am Oddly, it's missing the B-24 crash from WW2 up in the NE Wind Rivers as well...
Yes.

Also outside Colorado, the B-25 crash on Mt Timpanogos (Utah) isn't shown either and that's one of the most famous crashes in the Rockies, partially because many people hike to see it. Neither are the two famous crashes around Lone Peak. Those were all fatal crashes. Or the fighter plane crash on Black Crook. Or the plane crash near Cyclone Pass (the wreckage is still there). Or the helicopter crash near the summit of Swasey Peak. Or the military plane at the southern end of the San Rafael Swell.

I don't see the A10 Thunderbolt crash in Mayday Canyon (Arizona) either.

None of the ones I know of (with wreckage still in yhe mountains), so it is only a partial list, but it still has some good info.
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Re: How many airplane wrecks in IPW are there?

Post by mountainrev »

blazintoes wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:05 am Remember Craig Button who crashed his A-10 into Gold Dust Peak?
I hiked Pika to GD a couple months ago and immediately hiked to the north side to look for the debris that was scattered over a quarter-mile-square area. I never found any debris. Maybe I should've brought Marc. Also I assume that since this was a well equipped military aircraft armed with four Mk-82 bombs, 60 magnesium flares, 120 metal chaff canisters and 575 rounds of 30-millimeter ammunition, there's no way the military left anything behind.

The coolest debris I've found was from this crash (another military fighter) but this time I found some fuselage shrapnel: https://abc7.com/star-wars-canyon-navy- ... h/5433048/
I was living in Eagle when the A-10 Warthog crashed into Gold Dust. Quite the to-do, since he had taken off armed with missiles. The military assumed the missiles were still attached when he crashed, so there was a major retrieval operation that went on that entire summer. They had teams of personnel scouring the area, and even had a boat on New York Lake with cameras searching the bottom for the missing missiles.

I had a friend who was with the Army helicopter base at the Eagle airport at the time. He was in on the operation. It sounds like they picked up every single piece of debris to analyze it and figure out what happened. He said that it basically disintegrated into tiny pieces upon impact. He must have been going full speed. The only way they could positively identify the pilot was by a tiny piece of a finger with enough there to do a fingerprint.

I attempted to summit New York Mountain that summer with my family. The entire way up we were shadowed by a couple of obviously military personnel. I assume they were making sure we didn't go where we weren't supposed to.

Ultimately, they concluded that he had ejected the missiles (without arming them) somewhere between Arizona and Colorado, perhaps into a reservoir like Lake Powell. The official report was that Button purposely flew his jet into the mountain to commit suicide, since it would have been impossible for the A-10 to fly that far if the pilot had passed out or died of a medical condition. It turned out he was a Jehovah's Witness, I believe, and was having extreme issues because of his military career and his faith, which prohibits serving in the military.

Strange tale.
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