[ree]

In winter of 1942, a DC- 3 with actress Carole Lombard on board, crashed into a cliff on Potosi Mountain, southwest of Las Vegas. The crash killed all 19 on board. Wikipedia has a long article about details of the accident, largely the fault of the pilot heading on a wrong compass bearing. Potosi Mountain isn't a particularly special mountain otherwise. It's at the south end of the Spring Mountains, which border Las Vegas to the west. Potosi is a huge mountain with several knuckle-like peaks, most which have radio towers, transmitters, and other FAA equipment. It's pretty high - its tallest summit is 8,500', with great views of Las Vegas and the surrounding desert. I heard about the crash site, which still had some debris around, from Jim Boone's fantastic website about local LV desert hikes, Bird and Hike. Steve and I tried last Christmas to find this crash site. Unfortunately, the ground was covered in 6 - 12" of snow, obscuring the ground and complicating travel. This time, we were determined to start early and find it. The drive to the trailhead is about an hour and a half from metropolitan Las Vegas. We went south on interstate 15 till Jean/Goodsprings exit, then turned north west. We turned onto the Goodsprings Bypass Rd, which started paved, then degraded to a gravel road. The road was much rougher since we'd been there last and we had to take it easy with Dad's Camry... or else!! Yikes. We parked at the gate, and continued up an incredibly steep service road. We must have gained 2,300' in the first 1.25 miles. It started on the east side of Potosi, then wrapped around to the west, before gaining a ridge lined with peaks. A small cairn marked where we jumped off this road, and scrambled down and up to a gentle ridge. Below this ridge, was a cliff where Steve's gps indicated the site lay. A small piece of sheet metal confirmed we were close. When we found a rope strung from a dead tree, heading down the cliff, we knew we had the right gully to descend. Not wanting to trust the rope, we found another gully that was steep and slippery, but carefully made our way down below the cliffs.

Desert Denizen

service road we hiked up

view of Pahrump Valley

gravel road on top of the ridge

small cairn and radio towers

traversing

Las Vegas and limb

nice snags on the ridge

small piece of metal

From there, scattered down a steep, loose rock gully, we found all sorts of debris. The biggest parts were two landing gear, and two engines. Steve and I were pretty excited to find all the stuff, most of which was barely recognizable. Small pieces were scattered about, and probably much of it is now buried by time and erosion. We didn't see much in the way of a wing box or any large pieces of fuselage, but we didn't go too far down the gully - just until the debris field thinned out. I'm sure the site has been picked over, over the years. At one time, someone put a memorial plaque up there, but that supposedly got carted away. It wasn't an easy site to access, due to the steep loose terrain.

hubcap

artifact

airplane part

airplane part

cable control

airplane part

wire

loose gully

metal and landing gear

Steve inspects the landing gear

hose

landing gear

landing gear

heated metal

close up

gear

gear

engine

melted aluminum

melted aluminum

seat spring

canister

twisted metal

getting a shot to prove to Dad there were parts up there!

engine

wire coil

airplane part

another seat spring

cliff above crash site

rope going up cliff

After shooting some pictures, we headed back up. Steve was brave enough to try the rope exit, while I just headed back up the gully I came down. We took a short scramble to the peak above the cliffs, for a stupendous view of the desert. We got back to the car about 5 pm, just in time to join others in the Friday night, Las Vegas commute.

4 labels

Steve with Telescope Peak in the distance

Red Rock Canyon

Radio towers

Las Vegas

steep road

Mt. Potosi turn off

[Chico]

[Hulksmash]

[ree]

Chico - I went back and labeled that photo, showing Telescope Pk and other features/landmarks. That cracks me up about the toy, but not so funny if someone keels over and has a heart attack from fright! This is the second time I've seen a tarantula out in the desert there. They are pretty docile and cool, unless you're a cricket, of which we saw plenty. There were lots of birds up there, and also we saw deer tracks. Hulksmash, thanks for the observation. I'd be asking Steve "what's that?? What's that??" Some pieces he knew, others he didn't. I guess there is some archivist at Boeing that knows all this stuff. Regarding rust... this location gets more snow and precip than Las Vegas, at 8,090'. Maybe this would effect rust more..? The wikipedia article was super interesting: beacons dark due to war, Carole Lombard being asked to give up her seat, but she insisted... on that fateful flight. Her mother died in the crash too.

[ree]

Can anybody guess what this is?

airplane part

[Hulksmash]

I used to work for a company that overhauled radial piston engines. Regarding the rust. Only metal alloys containing iron (steel is an alloy) turn reddish brown when corroding. I thought the engine cases, prop reduction gear box case, and supercharger case were made of forged aluminum, which when corroding does not turn reddish brown. The part your asking about is most likely from the hydraulic system.

[puzzlr]

Thanks for the report, and especially for steering me to BirdAndHike.com - what a great site. I don't like being in the city of Las Vegas but the area has lots to offer and I'll definitely use this site next time I go through there.

[RodF]

[Hulksmash]

Mystified eh. Behold The R-4360 28 cylinder radial engine. I do believe this is the most complicated method to swing a prop ever devised. http://www.enginehistory.org/P&W/R-4360/4360Cross.jpg Oh ya. If ya want a headache figure out how the cam works to open and close the valves on a radial engine.

[AR]

So much history still there. Thanks for sharing! It looks like you left everything alone for future hikers too.