Trips to the Crystal Mountain DC-6B site

 During my annual 4WD trip in 1994 I took a whack at locating this wreck. The coordinates, of course, weren’t quite right and I didn’t find it but I was awfully close.

My critical clue was from a co-worker who rides dirt motorcycles extensively. He noted that he’d seen a wreck site in the woods many years before and put an X on my NFS map. I’d looked around in there during my trip but he finally described a stub of a road off of a very bad jeep road, the Crystal Mountain Rd. I’d driven 3 sides of the area so one day after work I went charging off on my Yamaha XT350 armed with GPS and a full Camelbak of water. I beelined directly to the jeep road and pretty much went directly to the spot. I’d been within 50 yds of the site but hadn’t seen it.

This wreck had been bulldozed into a trench to dispose of it at the time. In 1995 the dirt was settling and exposing heavy chunks of aluminum. There is no indication of what airline or what type airplane but there are pieces of the airplane on the surface scattered for perhaps 200 yds in length by 75 yds width. The accident report describes the airplane as having settled into the woods over a 1/4 mile long path and being shredded as it went scattering debris, luggage and bodies over a long path. It was reported as being the worst airline disaster in US history. Unfortunately, history has a way of topping itself so this dubious record didn’t stand long.

One of the few legends about this wreck is that one of the passengers was alleged to have been working for the Atomic Energy Commission and that there may have been radioactive material on board. While this was the 1950’s and nuclear safety was in its infancy, I find this concern to be unlikely.

(Click on picture to get enlarged image) Box girder visible. Stub road to site. End of road w. debris.

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Last Modified: 1/1/2008