On January 24, 1963 tragedy struck on Elephant Mountain in Maine.
A United States Air Force B-52 airplane took off on a training mission from Westover Air Force Base, just outside of Springfield, Massachusetts. Their objective was to fly low to the ground to test out a new radar system.
Unfortunately they encountered turbulence while on their way towards the mountains of Baxter State Park. The plane’s vertical stabilizer broke off while over the east side of Elephant Mountain which led to the plane crashing in the woodland shortly after.
Much of the wreckage remains on the mountain and is accessible via a short trail from a parking lot nearby. While staying in nearby Kokadjo, we decided to pay the crash site and memorial a visit.
While walking up the trail you start seeing small pieces of the wreckage almost immediately. The bulk of the wreckage is a little further up the trail, but the momentum from the crash presumably sent these pieces rolling down the hill.
Due to the force of the crash, there are various pieces of the wreckage caught in trees.
As you walk further up the trail, larger pieces of wreckage can be seen.
The B-52 had nine crew members on board and two of them survived. Despite having very little time to eject considering their mission already had them flying low to the ground, both the pilot and navigator were able to eject and survived. The co-pilot also managed to eject, but he sadly passed away as a result of his injuries along with the other six crew members.
The survival of the pilot and navigator was miraculous, particularly the navigator Capt. Gerald Adler. Although he was able to eject out of the aircraft, his parachute didn’t deploy. That makes him the only person to have survived being ejected from an airplane without a parachute deploying. Fortunately his seat landed upright in the snow rather than upside down.
Their survival was all the more incredible because both of them were stuck on the mountain overnight in temperatures that dropped below -25°F. Adler wasn’t able to access his survival kit due to the damage on his ejection seat, so he wrapped his parachute around his body to help protect from the biting cold.
The pilot – Lt. Col. Dante Bulli – had his own remarkable escape. He landed in a tree but managed to keep warm as he was able to access his survival kit which contained a sleeping bag.
Thankfully someone saw where the plane had crashed, but up to 15 feet of snow leading up to the site delayed their rescue. The B-52 had crashed at 2:52pm on January 24, 1963 and the rescuers didn’t make it to the site until about 11am the next day meaning that Bulli and Adler had to survive in the below freezing temperatures for almost 24 hours.
Scott Paper Company (now part of Kimberly-Clark Corporation) owned the woodland where the crash occurred. They’ve since made the B-52 crash site a “No Harvest Zone” to preserve the area and honor the loss of the plane’s crew members.
You can find the B-52 Crash Site Memorial on Google Maps here. Google Maps gave us directions to the site, but when you get within a couple of miles of the site you’ll also see signs directing you there.
Leave a Reply