Myself and some coworkers finally located the site of a B-52 that crashed while doing high speed low altitude testing over the Oregon High desert in 1959. They were testing how best to attack Russia if the case ever arose. Basically trying to fly at tree top level to evade radar. The plane suffered a catastrophic failure of the horizontal stabilizer at 300 feet above the ground. That caused the plane to begin an uncontrollable climb before it stalled and began to break up, finally it exploded in midair and scattering wreckage over a half mile area. Unfortunately none of the five crew members had a chance to eject. Not that it would have helped at such a low altitude anyways. This particular plane also participated in Operation Hardtack, where it flew through at least eight different nuclear clouds. I'm a little curious to know if the radiation over that many explosions would have caused some sort of metal fatigue or not. Strangely in a way the test was a partial success since the Radar Station in Burns Oregon 30 miles away didn't even detect the flight. The first report they got was from a logging crew that saw the accident occur. I've already begun to research the plane and have located several photos of the actual plane. There is actually a 1/72 decal sheet with this plane available from Fine Art of Decals. I plan to pick it up in the near future and build a memorial model to the flight crew.
hmy: ...thanks for posting!
