The Bailey B24 Crash | South Park Heritage Experience

The South Park region is widely known for its natural beauty, but its landscape has shown its usefulness, particularly for military training purposes. Unfortunately, during some military training exercises, things can go awry, as they did during the B24 crash that occured near Santa Maria in Bailey, Colorado. Find out more in the latest episode of the South Park Heritage Experience.
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Slide descriptions:
1. The South Park region is widely known for its natural beauty, but its landscape has shown its usefulness, particularly for military training purposes.
2. The nearby Camp Hale and the famous 10th Mountain Division utilized mountainous terrain, much like South Park’s, for training purposes.
3. The soldiers were trained for Alpine missions in European ranges.
4. The canyons and valleys surrounding and leading into South Park provide the perfect opportunity for aerial units to practice radar defeating runs and have done so since the 1940s.
5. The missions are high risk even with today’s tech as pilots must fly low to hide their signal in valleys like the Platte Canyon.
6. In the early 1940s, B-24 bombers were in heavy use but lacked modern tech and jet agility, which led the planes to earn an unfortunate nickname after a series of crashes; the flying coffin.
7. Sadly, one of those crashes occurred near Santa Maria, as a B-24 out of the now long gone Lowry Field, flew into the surrounding mountains.
8. According to the Greeley Tribune’s eyewitness accounts; one of the craft’s occupants managed to bail as the plane nosedived. It appeared to pull up at the last minute but ultimately struck the mountainside. Sadly there were no other survivors.
9. Witnesses watched as much of the plane burned through the night. Fortunately, there were no civilian casualties and sensitive items were destroyed or retrieved. Heavy and more durable items, such as engines, remain at the crash site even today.
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[@ericbell871]

I have been connected with the southpark, Bailey area since 1957. Never heard about this crash.