Blodgett Peak’s 1943 C-49-J Crash Site

The Academy is home to a large number of impressive static display aircraft.  In addition to those in populated areas, there is one aircraft well off the beaten path, just to the west of the Academy, that predates the others by decades. ----more----

It is a static display of sorts, though decidedly not on purpose.  And it is way up there, on the side of Blodgett Peak.  Let’s go have a look!

The mountain on which the aircraft rests towers over the Academy at the southwest corner of the campus.  It is named for pioneers Aaron and Martha Blodgett, who established a homestead in the Pine Valley area in the 1860s.  Other pioneers said the Blodgetts were kind and helpful, sort of the Pine Valley welcome wagon.  Maybe that’s why the mountain is named after them.

Blodgett Peak reentered Academy consciousness in 2012 when the Waldo Canyon fire spread to Blodgett and forced the Academy to move in-processing from Doolittle Hall, where it had been every year since 1995, to the Field House.

On 23 February 1943, a U.S. Army Air Force C-49J crashed here, on the north face of Blodgett Peak.  Perhaps due to the steepness of the terrain and the remoteness of the wreckage, it was not moved.  Lieutenant Baxter Ireland and two crew members died in the crash, which occurred during a training mission from Denver to Pueblo when Lieutenant Ireland became disoriented in inclement weather.  The War Department’s explanation of the accident was succinct, listing the cause as, “Collision – Other Object.”

 

 

 

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