On an overcast August 26th, 1954, two Douglass AD-6 (A-1H) Skyraiders crashed into Mount Saint Helena, California. I visited the site with a friend to start the year.
Following a 3-hour drive, a 5-mile hike, and Cheez-Its, we began our descent toward the suspected crash area.
This wasn’t as straightforward as we had hoped. We spent an hour navigating loose boulder fields and dense forest. Landmarks suggested our estimates to be incorrect, forcing awkward traversal, crawling, and climbing. Falsely metallic rocks did not help.
After 2 hours off trail, I turned a rock face to a large wing section.
We spent almost 2 hours surveying the combined wreckage from both planes.
Parts were strewn for hundreds of feet on the hillside.
With daylight waning, we forewent the distant engine and hiked out on an open ridge.
We expected a lot of wreckage going in, but the firsthand magnitude of this combined crash site was so surreal.
