B-52 Crash Site

Wreckage of a Cold War bomber preserved in the woods on Elephant Mountain

A short walk through the woods off the Greenville-Brownville road brings you to one of the more haunting historical sites in Maine: the broken remains of a B-52 Stratofortress, scattered across the snow-grass forest floor more or less where they fell in 1963. The crew names are inscribed on a small memorial; the wreckage itself is untouched — tail section, engines, fragments of fuselage.

About 25 minutes' drive from Greenville Junction; the last few miles are on a rough gravel road. Free; open year-round.

things to do sight
A story
On 24 January 1963 a B-52C bomber on a low-level training flight from Westover Air Force Base lost its vertical stabilizer in turbulence and crashed into Elephant Mountain, killing seven of the nine crew. The two survivors spent the night strapped into ejection seats in deep snow at minus thirty before being rescued. The site has been preserved as it was found.

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