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Fairfax, California B-17 Crash in 1946
- floatingatoll 10y agoMods, can we append (1946) to this?
- ryandamm 10y agoHaha yeah -- I live in Fairfax, and I did a brief double take (though B-17 implies it was a while ago).
- mysterydip 10y agoIt does, but there's also still some preserved/restored flying for airshows or whatnot. I thought initially this was a crash of one of those.
- sctb 10y agoThanks, updated.
- ryandamm 10y agoThere's a mountain bike trail in Camp Tamarancho named "B-17" after the crash. Though there is supposedly extant remains of a different crash on the slopes of Mt. Tam, I haven't personally seen them.
- robterrell 10y agoThe other crash is on the Mill Valley side, off the Vic Haun trail: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mount-tamalpais-aircraft-crash-site http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mount-tamalpais-aircraft-... From downtown Mill Valley, drive up Summit until it ends. That's the start of the Temelpa trail. You can take that trail all the way up to east peak summit (some amazing views along the way, highly recommended) but if you divert at Sitting Bull rock onto the Vic Haun trail, the trail to the crash site is a bit before the creek.
- mcphage 10y agoDid something happen that made this currently relevant, or was it referenced in another source recently? It's interesting enough, but I can't tell if there's some subtext that I'm missing.
- ngcazz 10y agoPerhaps this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14085454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14085454
- macintux 10y agoRelated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash (edit: or at least similar)
- maxxxxx 10y agoI remember when I was kid a convoy with a Pershing missile had an accident close to where I lived and there was a big fire. Nothing happened but it was pretty scary. Even found an article: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-14354045.html http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-14354045.html
- butterfi 10y agoI live right at whites hill and have never heard this story, thanks for sharing!
- jessriedel 10y agoThere have been many military crashes with nuclear weapon material on board, some resulting in its dispersal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid... I'm not sure why this alleged one is particularly noteworthy.
- slyrus 10y agoA little too close to home!
- valuearb 10y agoPretty sure a B-17 could not carry nuclear weapons of that era. It was, however, used to do atmospheric testing for operation cross-roads.
- cmurf 10y agoCommand and Control (the book, I haven't seen the documentary) has a number of stories way way way scarier than this one. Imagine an ICBM, with warhead, in a missile silo in Arkansas, massively and rapidly leaking oxidizer, the pressure for which in part provides foundation for the weight of the rest of the rocket above that tank; if it gets to a certain low pressure point, it crushes under the weight above, and then fuel and oxidizer combine, ignite, and now you've got a warhead involved in the ensuing conflagration. I really think we've been incredibly lucky with nuclear weapons, and comparatively unlucky with nuclear power plants. Not that I have a problem with that.