B A C K   T H E N

B-52 Stratofortress Down in Maine



A B-52 Stratofortress with a wingspan of 185' and length of 159'. Department of Defense photo

It’s been nearly 50 years since the cold winter of 1963.

A B-52C departed Westover AFB in western MA at 12:11 p.m. on Thursday, January 24, 1963, and was scheduled to return to Westover at 5:30 p.m. This was to be the first low-level navigation flight utilizing terrain following radar in the Eastern United States. It was on a routine mission of low altitude maneuvers for avoiding then current Soviet radar technology.

Around 2:30 p.m. the Stratofortress crossed Princeton, Maine, descended to 500 feet. Flying west it started its simulation of penetrating enemy airspace at low altitude with an airspeed of 280 knots. The outside temperature was 14°F below zero with winds gusting to 40 knots and 5 feet of snow on the ground.

Approximately 22 minutes later, just after passing Brownville Junction in the center of Maine, the aircraft encountered heavy turbulence. While the pilot tried to avoid it by wrenching the huge plane under control a loud groaning sound was heard, then an explosive sound as the stabilizer was ripped off. After the pilot lost control of the bomber it rolled to the right and went into a steep nose first dive. He ordered the crew to abandon the plane.

Things were happening fast. Not all crewmen had ejection seats. Only three of the nine crew were able to get out of the plane before it crashed into Elephant Mountain at 2:52 pm. The snow was deep in January around Moosehead Lake. About 10 miles northeast of Greenville it had drifted to 15 feet in places around the 2,636-foot Elephant Mountain.

The pilot, co-pilot and navigator were able to eject before the crash, but all six of the remaining crew members were killed. The co-pilot was killed when he hit a tree while parachuting. Another crewman landed in a tree surviving the –30F below zero night after wrapping himself in his sleeping bag. The navigator’s parachute did not deploy upon ejection. He impacted the snow-covered ground before separating from his ejection seat about 2,000 feet from the wreckage, hitting the ground with an impact estimated at 16 times the force of gravity. With a fractured skull and broken ribs he survived the night after wrapping himself in his parachute.

Several rescue groups from Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire rushed to the scene. They could not find the wreckage in the deep woods before dark. After the crash site was located the next day, plows were dispatched from Greenville to clear 10 miles of road of snow drifts up to 15 deep. The rescuers had to use snowshoes, dog sleds and snowmobiles to make it through the remaining mile to the crash site. The two survivors were located that morning and taken to the hospital by helicopter.

Parts of the wreckage are still in the woods on Elephant Mountain. A memorial slate with the names of those who died and survived was place at the site on the 30th anniversary of the crash. More recently low altitude testing of cruise missiles has been done over the north woods. These too are unarmed.