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Wow, that's cool as hell. I mean, not cool that a plane crashed but that you can hike to the wreckage.



Did you find some bags of reefer in the hull? If so, share them with your sexy hiking partner who's a romance author.

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Looks like a Beechcraft Model 18 to me.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Model_18



http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b367/thunderw21/more%20stuff/BeechcraftModel18.jpg

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Thank You big time for that pic!!!!!!

It all adds up, right down to the black rubber material on the leading edge of the wing......

I can tell from a pic of the plane, alot of it has been hauled off over the years.....

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Picture of Pilot

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Wow, I just found that pic on Google Earth a few months ago.  I camp and fish there frequently, so I was intrigued.  I have searched and searched Google to find any news stories or anything and I never found anything.  I began to wonder if the pic was in the wrong location.  Now I'll add this to my list of places I need to go...

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I thought too, it was another google earth pic in the wrong place......  I marked it on my GPS where I thought it may be, and by god it was there......

There is no trail to the plane per-say, it's a 200yds hike up the holler to the plane from the laurel river trail.....

I have camped Laurel fork since a young pup (I'm 24) My grand-pa pretty much raised me over there int he summer camping.  I never while he was alive heard him mention it, and I know he had hunted that area for years.....

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Where's N_T now that we Really need him  

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If that happened today, the environmental POLICE would make them remove every scrap, and return the forest to it's "PRESTINE" condition....

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Too cool.  Do you live near there?  I'm up in Fairmont, but try to get down there as much as I can.  Fly fishing and camping.
Now I see the pic was uploaded in February, I was gonna say I've been over most every square inch of the National Forest in Google Earth over the years and I knew I'd never seen it before.
New destination to check out next spring during trout stocking.

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Actually the idea of a wilderness is to leave everything as-is I am not sure if this was in a wilderness area but I think you are a little mixed up or at least kind of paranoid.  If a tree falls on a trail climb over it there is no maintenance and I am not sure if I have ever heard of these "environmental police".
 

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I'm over South of Elkins, near Beverly...

I haven't had the time to go fishing in forever.  Pretty much since my grandpa died back in 03' I hadn't been to laurel fork alot.  I just started getting back and exploring more stuff that I never knew was there when I was a young buck

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I'm over South of Elkins, near Beverly...

I haven't had the time to go fishing in forever.  Pretty much since my grandpa died back in 03' I hadn't been to laurel fork alot.  I just started getting back and exploring more stuff that I never knew was there when I was a young buck

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http://www.stinsonflyer.com/prop/be18-31.jpg

 

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You should take the train out of Elkins down the valley - no roads there.

http://mountainrailwv.com/choose-a-train/cheat-mountain-salamander


http://mountainrailwv.com/mountain-rails/1-rt-map.jpg


Beautiful country you have down there, btw - 'cept the one lane traffic for all the water lines they are laying bites the big one.

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Hell, i can hike that for cheaper than that train costs!!!  I've been to most of those places on foot already.....

by one lane traffic, are you referring to rt.33 on the mountain??  There widening it out for a truck lane all the way up it.  Key is to go on the weekends

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Hell, i can hike that for cheaper than that train costs!!!  I've been to most of those places on foot already.....

by one lane traffic, are you referring to rt.33 on the mountain??  There widening it out for a truck lane all the way up it.  Key is to go on the weekends

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I think he's talking about 219/250 South of Beverly to Huttonsville.

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Actually I was thinking of 219 south out of Elkins. Must have spent a good 1/2 hour there waiting on WVDOH to stop yakking and let traffic go the other way. Once 250 splits off (Huttonsville?) 219 was terrific. What a sweet drive with beautiful (and clean!) countryside.

Came back through Durbin & 33 and that wasn't near as bad.

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You sir have found my secret places  I know the top of cheat mountain on 250 like the back of my hand, done alot of hiking up there too

This is my backyard, I pretty much use the Nat. forest as such.  I can hike a different trail every weekend, and never repeat one

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LOL, I saw plane wreckage near Dolly Sods in 1979, and it looked like it had been there quite a while back then.



There's a B52 in Savage State Forest in western MD,  pretty easy hike. Went down in a blizzard in '64.

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Translation for stupid yankees:  hollow.  

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That there headless horseman feller lived up Sleepy Holler, right?

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The fuck?

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Guys, I do kinda wonder about something else I noticed on the plane......All of the wings had a yellow cross sloppily painted on them.  I thought maybe it was from after the crash, but it's on the underside of the rear wings, not a easy place to paint post crash.....
Also, where can I find the aircraft ser##  I can go back and try to find it if need be......
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h313/joe7170/Laurel%20Fork%20South/IM000065.jpg
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h313/joe7170/Laurel%20Fork%20South/IM000056.jpg

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Damn it, I live in WV give me a break on english

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I grew up in East TN, I knew exactly what you were saying.
 

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Those are some amazing pics! Its crazy to walk up on something like that in the woods. Its like taking a trip back in time

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The crosses might have been applied by the rescue people or by the relatives of the people in the crash.

Go to airliners.net and do a search - http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled/Beech-C-45H-Expeditor/1377341/M/&sid=7f2d00a5b0da9b3f4a3b84cd280c5b00

Your pictures show that the serial numbers on the side of the fuselage was hacked away a long time ago.
Look for "identiplates", they will be metal tags will all sorts of information on them.
They should be on all of the major parts of the aircraft.

http://www.zianet.com/tmorris/49-075%20plaka%20V2.jpg

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I just read your IM about this.

The locals told me that plane was up there. I probably walked right by it.   There's another plane up on Spruce knob.

A Navy  MH-60 Nighthawk crashed above Green Bank this past winter.  They hoisted most of it out though.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1915936/observatory_staff_aid_in_military_helicopter_crash_rescue/

By Karen O’Neil and Mike Holstine, National Radio Astronomy Observatory

posted: 03 September 2010 11:06 am ET

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope is the world's largest fully steerable telescope, an incredibly sensitive instrument which can detect complex molecules such as sugar (glycoaldehyde) in space, measure minuscule fluctuations in gravitational fields from gravitational waves and map primordial gas feeding star formation within the Milky Way.  

The NRAO staff in Green Bank, West Virginia, typically spend their day working to maximize the scientific output of the telescope through maintenance, instrument development, and aiding the wide variety of scientists whose peer-reviewed scientific observations are scheduled on the telescope.

February 18, 2010 was ending like any other day at the site — the telescope was observing the motion of galaxies in the nearby universe, and the majority of employees had already left for the day.

In this serene mountain valley, it is not uncommon to hear the roar of military jet fighters close by as they train in the nearby Evers Military Operations Area. This evening, though, brought the sound of two West Virginia Army National Guard HH-60 Blackhawk helicopters to the site itself, and it was clear that something was amiss.

Christine Plumley, the site Associate Business Manager, was leaving her office when she spotted the helicopters landing on the site airstrip. She grabbed Butch Wirt, the Facility Engineer, and drove to the aircraft to determine why they had landed. Christine and Butch were met by Major Kevin Hazuka of the W.V. Army National Guard (ANG), who was piloting the aircraft.  

He had just dropped two of his medics off at the crash site of a Navy MH-60 Nighthawk helicopter that had been participating in a joint military training exercise, and the helicopter had crashed en route from Ft. Pickett, Va. to Camp Dawson in W.V. Maj. Hazuka and his crew had been searching for the downed aircraft and its crew of 17 since about 2:00 p.m. that afternoon. The weather was cold and snowing and the Navy helicopter had crashed in an extremely remote area of mountainous Pocahontas County.

Bringing him to the Jansky Lab, a building typically used for staff offices, workspaces, and equipment rooms, Christine offered the use of the phones so that Maj. Hazuka could begin to make calls to his command center. One of the Blackhawks that set down with Kevin had mechanical problems and Kevin's chopper was nearly out of fuel. He called for refueling trucks from the nearest ANG Incident Command Center — in Parkersburg, W.V., about four hours' drive from the Green Bank site — and then coordinated his team to begin a rescue plan.  

The site Unicom system, which operates in the aircraft frequencies, allowed Kevin to talk to a C-130 plane brought in to circle the crash site and relay information to the ground crew. Christine called Mike Holstine, the site Business Manager, Karen O’Neil, the Green Bank site director, and a number of other NRAO employees who volunteered their time (and sleep) to help out with what would turn into a 40 hour, round-the-clock battle against time to set up a command center, aid in the formulation of a plan to rescue the downed crew, and support the military operation in every way possible.

Local volunteer firefighters and rescue personnel from the Bartow-Frank-Durbin (BFD) Fire and Rescue squad, many of whom are also NRAO employees, converged on the site, as did news media from the region. Once final coordinates of the downed craft were obtained, Holstine was able to generate 3D elevation maps of the crash site and overall topographic and photo maps of the terrain. Knowing the mountainous terrain well, the BFD members were well aware of the considerable difficulties they were going to face in reaching the crew.  

NRAO's offices and conference rooms were rapidly turned into command posts for communications and the command center for the ANG. While the ANG focused on coordinating the heroic rescue effort undertaken to bring medics and crews the approximately seven miles, through the five- to eight-foot snow drifts, to rescue the downed soldiers, NRAO staff came in to prepare food, drink, and beds (in the small, on-site student bunkhouse) for the hungry and exhausted ANG soldiers at the NRAO command center.  

NRAO staff also came in to plow the airstrip of snow, which had been accumulating in the area for the last two months, as well as to open the machine shop for the helicopter crews and supply them with ladders and tools for the repair of one of the Blackhawks.

The site of the crash was almost halfway between the closest main road through the county, Route 92 at Cheat Bridge, and the Snowshoe Ski Resort. Coordination with the Shaver's Fork Fire and Rescue team at Snowshoe allowed rescuers to reach the crash site within several hours and finally retrieve the last of the crewmembers by noon the next day.  

Incredibly, there were no fatalities in the crash and all crew members are expected to make a full recovery. This amazing result is all the more astounding when you realize that the temperature that night dropped to 17 degrees Fahrenheit and the crash site was in an extremely remote, mountainous and snowy area.

The Navy and Army National Guard recognized employees of the NRAO NFS facility on March 10, 2010, at a ceremony in Elkins, W.V., and by the Governor of West Virginia at a ceremony held at Snowshoe Resort on March 27, 2010.  As stated by the ANG, their "tireless efforts, dedication to the mission, failure to yield to exhaustion, unyielding assistance, and hospitality" aided in the overall success in bringing these service men and women home and demonstrating the importance of the NSF in local communities beyond the normal mission.

As a follow-up to the crash, on April 21, 2010, about 20 US Army National Guard and Navy personnel arrived at the Green Bank site to recover the remains of the downed helicopter. Three Blackhawks and a CH-47 Chinook helicopter brought the helicopter remains back to the Green Bank site. The salvage craft was lowered to the ground and the NRAO crane was used to pick the airframe from the ground and load it onto a lowboy Navy tractor trailer. The GBT forklift was used to load all of the basket parts into a Navy cargo truck. By 6:00 p.m. on April 22, the operation was complete and all personnel were headed back to their respective stations.

All persons in the community who volunteered their time and efforts for this astounding rescue are to be greatly applauded for their work. In addition to those named above, we particularly would also like to thank NRAO employees Pete Chestnut, Philip Doolittle, Helen Coleman, John Ford, Dave McPaters, Mary Meeks, Ellen Ryder, H.A. Taylor, Dave Vandevender, Galen Watts, and Tim Weadon for their efforts.

This C-45-H Expeditor #52-10571A ...aircraft is now on display at the museum...
This scale model aircraft represents the one in the 7 September 1958 crash where four lives were lost. The aircraft stationed at Bakalar Air Force Base was assigned to CONAC 10th AF 2466th ARFC. The Bakalar pilots were, Major George A. Smith and Captain Edward E. Holtkamp, both of Columbus Indiana. Also CAP (Civil Air Patrol) members from West Virginia were lost in the crash 30-miles southeast of Charleston, West Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. William Hamilton of Huntington, West Virginia were on board at the time of the crash.

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Tail numberN215W
Accident dateJune 30, 1983
Aircraft typeTwin Beech(AF)
Beech G18S(NTSB)
LocationKeyser, WV
Additional details:RD WT BL

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You don't want to go in there on 33 out of Elkins  weekdays as they're working on a truck lane up Shavers. You'll be stuck there for a while.