September 18, 1944: USAAF, Boeing B-17G (42-102899), Abineau Peak, San Francisco Peaks, AZ

Tragedy struck the Peaks twice in less than three days when another night training flight ended in disaster. The B-17G and crew were based at the Kingman Army Airfield. Departing in the early evening hours of September 17, 1944, the routine night training flight was scheduled to fly from Kingman to Winslow to Tucson and then return to Kingman. En-route time was to be 4 hours 30 minutes. The weather was scattered cumulus clouds, but for the most part a clear night to fly the round-robin cross country flight. On board were four crew members:

IN MEMORY OF

1st. Lt. Richard Howell (Pilot)
Co-Pilot 2nd. Lt. Richard Davis (Co-Pilot)
Flight Officer Lafayette Brown (Co-Pilot-Training)
Sgt. Edmund Sikora (Flight Engineer)

Around 8:15 PM, near Flagstaff, Arizona the aircraft experienced an inflight fire or fires which spread to the tail section of the aircraft. The aircraft was witnessed to climb while maneuvering towards the area of Abineau Peak. Before the crew could make a successful escape by parachute, the aircraft struck a ridge line and tall pine trees at 11,700' severing the tail section. The fragmenting aircraft continued down the steep slopes of Bear Jaw Canyon with no survivors.

The accident investigation revealed evidence of an inflight fire which caused damage to the left elevator control surface. However, due to the complete destruction of the aircraft, a source and probable cause of the fire could not be determined. The flight crew, distracted by the fire and the dark night, probably never saw the mountain they struck.

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I began my hike up to this accident site in July 2013 with fellow historic aircraft accident researcher Chris McDoniel. Because we were attempting this hike in the middle of Arizona's monsoon season, we decided to start early to avoid the storms in the afternoon.