Mount Baker Hiker Finds Wwii Plane Wreckage

Wreckage spotted by a hiker on Mount Baker is believed to be that of a Navy fighter plane that disappeared with five people aboard while on a training or combat mission during World War II, the Navy says.

Human bones, engine parts, live ammunition, inflatable life rafts and carbon-dioxide bottles were strewn across the site 7,500 feet up the 10,775-foot mountain. Nearby, embedded in ice for a half-century, was the blackened body of the aircraft.

Charles Eaton, a 55-year-old welder, was hiking in a remote area of the mountain last week when he came upon parts of the wreckage near the edge of a glacier. The hot, dry summer resulted in more snow melt than usual, and Eaton was able to trek into an area usually blanketed by snow.

The same weather apparently caused the glacier to recede, revealing the bulk of the wreckage.

Eaton stumbled upon the engine parts and bones, including a jawbone with some teeth, shortly before a planned break for lunch.

"I didn't feel like eating at that point," he told The Bellingham Herald.

Eaton said hundreds of ammunition shells lay throughout the wreckage, along with two machine guns. "Everything was burned and shattered," he said.

Eaton brought back two or three shells bearing a 1943 date and turned them over to the Whatcom County sheriff's office.

A dog tag found at the site gave investigators the best clue as to the plane's origin. The tag belonged to one of five crew members aboard a bomber or torpedo plane from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station that crashed in August 1943 at the height of World War II.

"During World War II the continental United States was concerned about an invasion by the Japanese and submarine attacks along the entire West Coast," said Lt. Ken Exum of Naval Base Seattle. "These types of planes flew combat missions and anti-submarine warfare all up and down the coast."

Exum said yesterday the wreckage was probably that of a PBY or a PV1 or PV2. A PBY, a 63-foot-long aircraft with a 104-foot wingspan, was used for anti-submarine warfare. The PV1 dropped bombs and the PV2 dropped torpedoes.

Flight logs show a combat plane with a crew of five left the Whidbey base at Oak Harbor in August 1943 and never returned. But the records don't specify the type of plane.

He said the plane was apparently on a training or combat mission when it crashed into Mount Baker, a snow-capped, dormant volcano about 50 miles northeast of the Whidbey base and 85 miles north of Seattle.

When the plane was reported lost, the Navy told families of the crew members that everyone aboard was presumed dead. The Navy is now trying to locate surviving kin to advise them of the discovery.

An Air Force team flew by helicopter to the site last week and determined the wreckage belonged to an old Navy plane.

A Navy team of two ordnance-disposal experts and an aerospace physiologist returned to the site Thursday. Among the items they spotted: human bones, engine and fuselage parts, portions of life rafts, small carbon-dioxide bottles used to inflate life jackets and rafts, live ammunition and a dog tag.

Exum wouldn't reveal the name on the identification tag.

A Navy crew plans to return to the site to recover the human remains, Exum said.