On January 19, 1952, SB-17G 44-85746 was returning to McChord Field from a search and
rescue mission of its own.  Ironically, the crew was searching for survivors of a Korean plane
which crashed off the Queen Charlotte Islands. On their flight back to base, the the SB-17 crew encountered
heavy winds which pushed  them off-course, directing them west of the designated flight path and
over high mountains  in the Olympic National Forest.  The crew encountered heavy blizzard
conditions and lost radio contact. Not  knowing their exact location, they had no way of knowing
their altitude was too low  for the surrounding terrain. Three of the eight crewmen were killed, two
of the survivors were seriously injured when the SB-17 impacted with the mountain range. Please
keep in mind the loss of life when considering the following pictures.

The contrast of the deadly wreckage surrounded by the beautiful landscape is intriguing.

Pictures taken August 1 (plus or minus one day), 1999.

The pictures I took at this crash site mainly focus on the wreckage surrounded
by the mountain landscape.  Mikey has a web page devoted to the same
crash and he focuses mainly on pieces and structures of the aircraft. Access his
page here:  http://www.peak.org/~mikey/746.htm   Together I think we have
complimentary photos of the same crash, although you'll find numerous pictures
that are nearly identical.

Update! Mikey's page has recently been overhauled to include interviews with the survivors of the crash.
Also, extensive reconstruction of what may have occured that night. I direct you to his web page if you are interested in
further details.

You can access the photos on my page by one of two ways:

Click HERE if you have a fast connection and want to download all the pictures at once.
WARNING! Over 2 megs, (37 pictures) total!

Or you can view each picture one at a time from the Main Index.
Click HERE for this option.  Most pictures are 50-60 k in size.

Other Aviation Archaeology web sites.

No comments, please, regarding web page design! The pictures speak for themselves.
For questions or comments regarding the crash, etc. please drop me a line.

Oh ya, all pictures copyright  1999 yada yada yada  All rights reserved blah blah blah
Feel free to snag these if you'd like, just let me know so I feel useful!
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