Our Everyday Life

Our big american journey took place almost a year ago and we want to go somewhere again. Soon there will be long weekend, Memorial Day, and usually we try to get away from home and our regular weekend routine. So we want to do so this year – our destination is Central Oregon, far from people and big cities.

Friday evening we packed our stuff and waited while the evening roads became less crowded. Next we jumped in our vacation car, Tundra, and drove to La Pine where we wanted to spend the first night. During this weekend we planned to made two major stops – find a plane crash site and take a walk in the Crack In The Ground.

Late night of September 19th, 1973 – almost fifty years ago – the A6 Intruder #155721 took off from the Navy base in Washington. It should be a low altitude training flight, the pilot was Lt. Alan Koehler, age 27, and navigator Lt. Cdr. Philip Duhamel, age 33. Everything was fine, until 40 minutes after takeoff. According to the book written by David L McCurry, Cye Laramie, radar contact with the airplane was lost suddenly, and so was radio transmission. 15 minutes later, the pilot from the other aircraft radioed that he observed a flash of light, a fireball that was followed by an explosion. Seattle Center tried to contact 155721 but no luck, and a special search and rescue aircraft was launched. It arrived to the crash site just past midnight and reported two emergency beeper signals. So the rescue team was sent to the site and got there in the morning of the 20th. They found both pilots pretty fast, but unfortunately no one survived… There were no observers who happened to be close to the crash scene so it was difficult to understand how low was the plane before impacting into the gradually rising terrain. Investigation showed that there were two impacts actually. After the first one severely damaged aircraft, it skipped back to the air to an unknown low height and continued on approximately 650 feet. After second impact it was a possible explosion.

After investigation was completed, the debris was left on the site. However, more and more visitors started to come, so the Federal Government installed a memorial plaque in honor of Lt. Alan Koehler and Lt. Cdr. Philip Duhamel, and announced that site as historical.

The dirt road leading to the crash site was in good condition, so the driving was smooth. After the road ended, we needed to hike about a mile to see the plane debris. While we were busy changing our shoes to hiking boots and applying sun screen, a group consisting of four cars came. They told us that there was another plane crashed in the area in 1945, but they are still doing research to find the exact coordinates.

Regular dull and colorless Central Oregon was in bloom. Here and there I noticed bright stains of flowers.

Soon we start to notice white pieces of the metal around us.

It looks like the pilots made a mistake in determining the height of the aircraft above the ground. It was dark so they could’t see the rising surface below the plane. They didn’t realize how low the aircraft actually was until it hit the ground for the first time. Pilots tried to eject from the plane, but unfortunately the plane height was too low for a safe landing and they both died…

The fragments of the aircraft lay on a large surface – the pieces of metal and wiring harnesses. You can only look, taking souvenirs is not allowed.

We spent a couple of hours here, walking among the debris and thinking about the pilots and how fragile the human life is. But at the end, our own bodies reminded us that it was already past lunch time and we went back. The other people turned back too, and soon we waved a good-bye to their cars passing us by.

After lunch break we slowly drove back, trying to see where we can spend the rest of the day and set up camp. There is no fire ban yet, so we can have a campfire!

The main tent set up is pretty easy and fast, but because it was our first time ,we struggled a little bit with the lower room set up. Three people can sleep on the second level and two on the first.

After setting up our campsite kids were helping with wood cutting and making a fire.

The night was going to be significantly colder than the day, so soon after dinner we cleaned up everything, and started preparation for the night.