Desert fertile ground for crashed aircraft

By Jace Radke
LAS VEGAS SUN

Except from the few reptiles who might use it for shade, a 50-year-old piece of burnt metal in the middle of the desert doesn't draw much notice.

But for some people, the debris is the beginning of a mystery that needs to be unraveled.

Scattered across the deserts and mountains of Nevada, Arizona and California are parts of jet engines, propellers and wings that mark the final resting places of thousands of military aircraft.

"You realize that you are looking at history, and then you want to put the puzzle together and see what you can find out about it," said Trey Brandt, a mutual funds broker in Arizona who spends his free time searching for crash sites as an aviation archaeologist. "You want to know the story behind what happened. It's like solving a mystery."

The latest mystery Brandt is trying to solve is a crash involving an F-86 Sabre that flew out of Nellis Air Force Base in March 1953. Lt. John Wayne Hazelton Jr. was killed when the plane went down during a training mission after his horizontal stabilizer failed, according to Air Force records.

Brandt found the crash site about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas near Temple Bar, Ariz., and is hoping to return personal items he found at the crash site to Hazelton's family.

Hazelton's dog tags and a Roman Catholic pendant are among the items that Brandt found at the site. Brandt, whose book "Faded Contrails" gives accounts of military crashes in Arizona, is one of many amateur explorers tracking the history of downed military aircraft in the West.

Doug Scroggins, a Las Vegas resident who owns a charter flight company, has been to hundreds of crash sites over the years.

"It's like a time capsule when you come across these crash sites that haven't been touched in some cases for half a century or more," Scroggins said.

Scroggins estimates that there are more than 100 crash sites in Clark County and at least 1,000 statewide.

Craig Fuller, who runs Aviation Archaeological Investigation and Research, a website that provides military accident reports, has documented about 1,100 crash sites in Arizona.

"No one really thinks about all the (military aircraft) training that went on in the Western states in the early years of the the Army Air Corps and the Air Force, but the sites are out there," Brandt said.

Retired Air Force Lt. Hank Dyson knows firsthand about one crash site west of Phoenix, because that's where he ejected from his F-80C Shooting Star more than 52 years ago.

"I hadn't really thought about it too much until Trey called me and said he'd found my crash," said Dyson of the Sept. 11, 1951, crash that was caused when another jet bumped his during a mock dogfight.

Dyson, 75, of Tacoma, Wash., winters in Phoenix and met up with Brandt to hike out to the crash site. When they arrived, all of Dyson's memories came flooding back.

"It was quite a sensation being back out there in the desert," Dyson said. "I remember parachuting down and landing near the plane. All the ammunition started going off and flying around and I just crawled down to the base of a hill and got as flat as I could.

"That hill is still out there and so is the spot where I was crouched down."

Because many key Air Force bases are located in the Western half of the nation -- Nellis, Luke in Arizona, Edwards in California -- over half a century of testing and training has left its mark on the Western states.

Fuller, the chief flight instructor for Arizona State University's flight degree program, said that aviation archaeology has long been popular in Europe due to the amount of downed aircraft in World War II.

"It really began in the late '60s in Europe with Battle of Britain enthusiasts, " Fuller said. "In the United States there was an interest in the '50s and '60s because the value of aluminum went up a few times, and people were looking for ways to cash in.

"In the '70s and '80s some of the crash sites became parts sources for people trying to get their planes flying, but in the '90s we started to see it become the hobby that it is today."

While older wreckage from the 1940s through the 1970s can be plentiful at crash sites, debris from the newer generation of military aircraft is now routinely cleaned up, said Mike Estrada, chief of public affairs at the Nellis-based U.S. Air Force Air Warfare Center.

"Unless we get a crash in an extremely inaccessible area we're going to go in and restore the site to its pre-existing condition," Estrada said. "We'll always take what the accident investigation board needs, as well as any classified or sensitive systems and any fuel or ordinance."

Fuller and Brandt treat the crash sites as natural resources, not taking any objects sites other than allowing family members or pilots to retrieve personal items.

"These sites are finite, and if people go out there and take things they won't be around for long," Fuller said. "It's like a lot of natural resources in that while are laws saying you can't take something there really isn't an easy way to police all the miles that are out there.

"The best defense is educating the public as well as land managers about the history that can be lost if we aren't careful. There's probably a dozen crash sites north of Nellis (AFB), but you can fit the debris that is left into a five-gallon bucket."

Anything on public lands, including aircraft wreckage, becomes a part of the resources protected by the federal government, National Park Service officials said.

"You want to preserve these things for other people to see, and out of respect for those who lost their lives," Scroggins said.

Crash sites can be used to answer historical questions if the wreckage is preserved and studied, Fuller said.

One historic preservation group is hoping to find the crash site of an Electra plane from the 1930s to compare it to a part that the group believes may have come from the Electra that Amelia Earhart was flying when she vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937, Fuller said.

For Brandt the greatest satisfaction comes not from answering historical questions, but from contacting the pilots and their families. He has been able to contact the pilots or the relatives of pilots from more than a dozen crashes.

Tracking down pilots and relatives can be just as challenging as locating crash sites. Brandt uses the Internet and public library records to help him find the people, and relies on military reports, word of mouth and maps to help find the sites.

"Finding the sites is made a little easier because we're in the West," Brandt said. "The terrain doesn't change much so if you can find a mountain peak that matches up to a crash photo you can usually locate a site through trial and error."

Radios, water, Global Positioning Systems and all-terrain vehicles are some of the tools needed to track down some sites, Brandt said.

"Sometimes you're out for the weekend and you don't find anything," Brandt said. "Sometimes they are really tough hikes back to where the site is and all there is left is a burn trail, but for me it's worth it.

"It's just something that gives me a reason to be the outdoors," he said. "And gives me the chance to unearth some history."

Copyright © 2003 Arizona Aircraft Archaeology