Plane Wreck on Fort

[Pamola]

This past weekend I hiked the brothers/fort/coe loop with a buddy and stumbled upon the plane wreck after thinking the actual summit might be on the east side of the ridge. I was floored by the size of the wreck after only seeing cessnas and such (Abraham in VT, I think?). Does anyone know any more about this? When it went down? Whose was it?

Also, North Brother was #66. Finishing with Zealand in two weeks.

First Post! Be gentle!

 

[Amicus]

This past weekend I hiked the brothers/fort/coe loop with a buddy and stumbled upon the plane wreck after thinking the actual summit might be on the east side of the ridge. I was floored by the size of the wreck after only seeing cessnas and such (Abraham in VT, I think?). Does anyone know any more about this? When it went down? Whose was it?

Also, North Brother was #66. Finishing with Zealand in two weeks.

First Post! Be gentle!

Nice post! (How's that? ) A really experienced VFTT'er (Arm?) posted a link that gave a lot of info on that military bomber and the crash, but I didn't keep a copy. If your post doesn't resurface it, you might try Google.

Zealand is an offbeat way to finish the NE 67 - nothing wrong with that. Prospective congratulations!

 

[Pamola]

Found it in an old thread by King Tut at mainelyhiking.com.
Went down on June 20th, 1944 with 7 hands aboard.

 

[Pamola]

Arm, thanks for the link. I literally found that 2 minutes ago myself.

The herd path down to the wreck was about half as wide and open as the path leading to Fort from North Brother. I found the path to Fort rather easy to follow and more open than threads on here and the maine mountain guide suggested. There were headhunters though. I have the bruises on my thighs to prove it.

The path to the plane was nearly unfollowable. There was not a clear trampled path or cut limbs, just a combination of slight passage and following the plastic flagging. A herd path in the loosest definition possible.

 

[Frodo]

That crash site is one of the more incredible places I have ever hiked to in the NE. There literally is TON's of wreckage with most of it in a confined area. We actually even crawled around inside of it. Very humbling....

From N. Brother, look across the ridge of Fort to the East summit, then look down about 100 feet below and you can see the tail protruding up thru the spruce.

If it is windy, and you are bushwhacking down from Fort's East summit, you can hear the wreckage creaking...

If only they were 200 feet higher we wouldn't even be discussing this today... Sad story...

 

[Steve-o]

Fort plane wreck:
http://www.geocities.com/petef86a/C54A.html

how was the path heading towards the plane wreck ?

2 weeks. We'll check it out Arm.
I won't let you down.

 

[Raymond]

I visited the site on September 11th. Like Pamola, I was trying to get to the eastern end of the peak and strayed onto the herd path. There was just enough orange flagging to follow to the site. I almost turned back a couple times because I didn’t know where I was heading, but I’m glad I stayed with it.

I didn’t see the engine or prop as seen in the pictures on that Web page, just the tail and some things I couldn’t identify.

I have some photos on my own page.

I never did get through to the eastern end of the mountain, where the summit appears to be open.

 

[lx93]

VT Camel's Hump Plane Crash

Pamola,

Congrats in advance on #67.

You also mentioned a plane crash on Abraham in VT. I've not heard of that one, but I do know there is a B-24 (WWII bomber similar in size to a B-17) wreck near a trail junction just down of the Camel's Hump, VT, summit, which is close to Mt. Abraham.

Don't know anything about it, didn't learn about it til I was back home.

 

[Pamola]

Raymond,
Quite a hike, eh? I ended up finding a few more interesting parts of the plane there, including an engine and two of the three pieces of landing gear.
Check out the pics at my brand new webshots acct:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/554357066uowZdS

Also, you can even see the tail on google earth.

lx93,
Thanks for the congrats! I finished last weekend and my TR is up. pics maybe to follow sometime now that i have the aforementioned acct.
As for the cessna on Abraham, I found an old thread explaining that one.
http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?p=100061#post100061

I'll have to check out the one on Camel's Hump this winter. Haven't been there in a couple years.

 

[Papa Bear]

Oaks Gulf Cessna

Now that we're on the subject of plane wrecks, has anyone ever seen/been to the wrecked Cessna in Oaks Gulf near Mount Monroe. It's the plane that "contributed" the famous propeller that White Mountain Hut Croos have been stealing from each other over the years. It went down on November 29, 1969. The three crewmen aboard were killed.

Here's the NTSB report; Oaks Gulf Cessna

And here's an account of a retelling of the story as given by the Lakes hutmaster in 2003; Propeller story

 

[Amicus]

Fort Wreck - Oct. 6, 2006

Friday morning was perfect when I reached the summit of No. Brother at 10:45 a.m. Ice and rime still covered whatever had not been touched by the sun, including the west border of the summit sign. I wondered if the tail of the WW II cargo plane wreck would be visble, as other posts had indicated, and it was. The morning sun glinted off the tail noticeably, even before I broke out my mini-binos. If you're sitting on the boulder with the summit sign, it's in a straight line with the high point of the east end of the Fort plateau, just over a hundred vertical feet below the summit and pointing west, where they were flying. It appears to be about 80% of the way from the west to the east end of the Fort plateau.

From the high point of Fort (the second cairn from the west, with the wreck's radio on top, which my altimeter measured as 3,870 feet, five feet higher than the west cairn), I traced a herdpath along the spine of the ridge for .14 mile, where it petered out just as I spotted a flag that led to others that led me through fairly thick growth, SE, to the tail. The wreckage heads back west and slightly down for a couple of hundred yards. I saw the wreckage in Pamola's pictures and some other things. In one little hollow I found a round aluminum molding - quite large and possibly an engine cowling - that looked almost new - not at all like a piece of a 62-year old fiery crash. The aluminum was unmarked and shiny.

They were blown off course by 70 miles by a storm which also prevented them from getting a radio location, as they flew from England to Wash., D.C. in 1944, carrying mostly mail, I gather. The crew were six TWA employees under comtract to the Army, and a Sergeant rounded out the crew of seven to make it official. Has they been cruising 150 feet higher (to paraphrase Frodo), they would have had miles of uninteruppted crsuising. The inquest deterined that all seven died instantly on contact.