Airplane Crash Site Revisited

00:00 hiking to crash site
01:30 start of debris field
10:20 main body of aircraft wreckage
17:07 recovered flight instruments and prop

On November 28, 1995, a twin-engine Cessna 414 crashed in a remote area of the Cranberry Wilderness in Pocahontas County, West Virginia (near the Webster County line). The only occupant, 31-year-old pilot Colin Campbell, was killed on impact. The wreckage was not located until November 15, 2001, nearly six years from when the accident occurred. No human remains were ever recovered from the accident site. On the day of the accident, the weather was deteriorating quickly, and Campbell apparently flew the plane at full speed into the obscured mountain side, just a few hundred feet from its peak.

I visited the crash site twice in November 2001 and once in the Spring of 2002. Here is the video I did of my first visit in November 2001 which includes a fly-over of the site we did the day before I first hiked to the site:    • Fatal Plane Crash  

Now, nearly 28 years after the crash occurred, I paid yet another visit to the site on May 21, 2023 and not much has changed. The shortest (but most difficult) way to access the crash site is to hike up the appropriately named Hateful Run from its mouth at the Williams River (GPS coordinates for mouth of Run: 38 degrees, 21' 03" N, 80 degrees, 15' 28" W).

The straight-line hike is 1.65 miles one way, with an elevation gain of just shy of 1,300 feet, plus a drop of 200 feet and another gain of 100 feet (prepare for a longer walk "zig zagging" your way up the mountain and around fallen trees and other obstacles in the straight line).

The GPS coordinates to the lower end (i.e., start) of the debris field are: 38.334833, -80.280500 (or converted to 38 degrees, 20' 0.54" N, 80 degrees, 16' 49.8" W). These are the coordinates I used to find the lower part of the debris field and my GPS took me to within 10 feet of the same using these coordinates.

The main body of the aircraft, the demolished cockpit, and where bits and pieces of the pilot's clothing were found sit at an elevation of 4,050 feet; the NTSB's aviation accident database list the GPS coordinates for this part of the site at: 38.335000, -80.28000.
The full report by the NTSB of the accident can be found at: https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Rep...