A mountain that still has remains of two F6F Hellcat fighters that crashed in 1949

@ElentirENG ES 5·02·2023 · 23:19 0

As we have seen before, plane crashes in hard-to-reach places can result in debris being there for decades.

Sierra Bermeja: the remains of a 1998 plane crash in a place that is difficult to access
Moncayo: an airplane graveyard in a Spanish mountain at more than 2,000 meters

This is the case of Mount Baldy, located in the San Gabriel Mountains, in southern California. On March 2, 1949, two US Marine Corps Grumman F6F Hellcat naval fighters were making a training flight over that area. The planes were flown by Sergeant Charles D. Castles and Sergeant John J. Harrington, both 28 years old. The two aircraft, 94182 and 94202, collided and went down on Mount Baldy, leaving debris all over the mountainside at an altitude of nearly 9,000 feet.

Both airmen died in the crash. A group of Marines and rangers managed to reach the crash site days later, bringing the bodies down the mountain on March 8. Despite so many years having passed, and due to how remote the place is, there are still many remains of this accident there, as shown in an interesting video published by the channel Western Mine Detective last summer:

You can see here some captures of the video. Here we see one of the remains of one of the Hellcats. It looks like part of a wing.

A Pratt & Whitney R-2800-10W Double Wasp motorcycle from one of the crashed planes.

More parts of one of the wings. You can still make out the blue paint that these Marine fighters wore.

The tail section of one of the fighters. It is upside down. Again, the blue paint on the plane is pretty well preserved.

One of the wings of the planes. The national insignia is still visible. During World War II, the decision was made on US military aircraft to paint the national insignia only on one of the wings, so as not to make it easier for enemy planes to aim. The insignia was painted on the top of the port wing and on the bottom of the starboard wing.