A Deadly Mountain Crash

To this day, hikers can find the wreckage of a B-47 bomber which crashed into the summit Wright Mountain

Twisted bits of metal, screws, and shredded pieces of cloth are strewn around.  Not far away lays the carcass of an engine and a weathered plaque.  Wright Mountain looms above the clouds, a sanctuary for hikers, a cemetery for few.

And on January 16, 1962, it marked the final resting place for four men and an airplane, some four thousand five hundred and eighty feet above sea level.

They didn't belong there.

 "The B-47 is a plane normally used for higher elevation," says Gary Hodgson, Lake Placid Forest Ranger from 1965-2000. "They were on a practice mission doing low-level bomb runs and they got too far east.  The plane hit the ridgeline of the west side of the mountain, its centrifugal force catapulting the rest of the plane on the east side of the mountain." 

"We could smell the jp4 (a plane engine fuel which smells like kerosene) but we still didn't know where it was."

James Lord, Lake Placid Forest Ranger from 1961 to 1965, was an active member of the search and rescue team sent to investigate the crash.  According to Lord, the plane had been missing for a few days before a civil air patrol spotted the orange panels on deployed parachutes in the Wright Peak region.  "We got to the top of Wright's Peak after dark but we didn't find anything," says Lord.  "There was snow up to our armpits; we didn't find anything that day." 

The next day was different.

"I went back up with a major from the air force.  He put the pieces together, and figured out where the plane was flying," Lord says.  "We could smell the jp4 (a plane engine fuel which smells like kerosene) but we still didn't know where it was," Lord recalls.     

Finally they found it. 

According to Lord, the plane hit so near the top that most of the fuselage was shattered.  "there were pieces that looked like they'd shattered like glass or wood, to about the size of a nickel or a quarter," says Lord.  Lord contends that everything that hit, including the crew, was scattered down from the summit or Wright towards Mt. Colden.  "All the bodies were quite a ways down toward the pass," Lord says:  "they were in pretty bad shape; we found the two bodies, I believe it was the pilot and co-pilot, they were still hooked to their parachutes.  It was after a few days of hunting, the snow was deep.  We didn't find any of the other remains until the spring." 

Lord recalls that the investigation halted due to the weather and the fact that there were no survivors.  "It was a 40 mile an hour wind.  We tried to get a helicopter in to investigate but the wind was too strong.  After a couple weeks, we kept trying, but everything just got buried [by the snow]." 

However, in may of 1962, Lord contests that his department was still looking for anything they could find.  When the snow melted, they found "little bits of pieces" of what Lord believes was the Bombardier.  

When Hodgson took the position as Forest Ranger in 1965, he recalls helping the family of one of the crew members erect a plaque for the crew of the bomber. This plaque was installed lower down the mountain, providing a more private memorial to family and friends of the victims. "The family got permission, called me to assist them, and I helped carry the equipment and dig the hole," Hodgson says.  "They were doing it as a memorial to their son and the others involved." 

 
To this day, hikers can still visit the site of the plane crash on Wright Mountain.  "It gives something else to the hike,"Ammon Lewis, Plattsburgh State University Student and avid hiker says.
"It was fun to go and find it."

"The family got permission, called me to assist them, and I helped carry the equipment and dig the hole."

Lewis found the plane after a search but recalls the best approach to finding the crash site:  "When you reach the alpine region it will be to the left side of the summit towards the top." 

Forever engraved on a plaque at the top of Wright Mountain are the following words:

In Memory Of
Aircraft Commander
1st Lt. Rodney D. Bloomgren
Copilot
1st Lt.Melvin Spencer
Navigator
1st Lt.Albert W. Kandetski
Observer
A1c Kenneth R. Jensen

A Strategic Air Command
B-47 Crew Killed Here 16 January 1962
While On A Mission Preserving
The Peace Of Our Nation

Have you found the plane wreckage on Wright Mountain?