With
their ideal climate and sparsely populated land, Arizona and the
southwestern states were used extensively to train Air Force and Navy
pilots. The height of this training took place from World War II thru the
1960’s. With the many air bases training thousands of pilots came many
mishaps. There were over 500 aircraft accidents in Arizona alone during
WWII, and over another 600 by the end of the 1960’s. Fortunately, many of
the crews were able to bail out and survive the crash, but tragically,
there were many that did not.
Over
the last 18 years I have located more than 350 crash sites in the rugged deserts and
mountains of the southwest. As an avid hiker and vintage military aviation
historian, I enjoy hunting for old aircraft wrecks so I can preserve their
history by photographing and documenting these historical aviation
remnants of the past. I find that each crash site, as well as the pilots
or crewmen I am fortunate to track down, has a unique and intriguing
story.
Enjoy some
of their stories in this little-known chapter of aviation history.
Trey Brandt
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| Latest Addition-
1944 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress crash in San
Francisco Peaks. |
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Vultee BT-13 crash north of Tucson from July
9, 1943 |
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Visit a 1942 B-17E Flying Fortress crash near Las Cruces, New
Mexico. |
The crew of KC-97G # 52-2711
which crashed on October 29, 1957 |
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| Sgt. Armand Peltier, one of seven men
killed in a B-24D crash in December, 1942. Mr. and Mrs. Peltier lost
two of their sons in WWII. |
Lt Edward Shokes and Lt. David
Blackwood died in a Navy Grumman F9F-8T crash in the
rugged mountains north of Indio, California in June, 1961. |
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Aircraft Wrecks in Arizona and the
Southwest
By Trey Brandt
TreyB@cox.net
602-617-2539 |
