On 4/17/88 the Piper PA-28-140 Cherokee N1681J went missing while on a flight from Bullhead City, Arizona to Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, California. After an eight day search that covered 8,000 square miles, the Civil Air Patrol located the plane in the Providence Mountains in a box canyon. The pilot and his wife were killed in the accident.

Driving into the Providence Mountains on my third attempt at locating the Piper PA-28 crash site.

After driving to a few different areas, I was able to spot the crash site. In my past two attempts never drove into this area. From here the site is only a mile away and about 1000 feet up in the canyon.

The first half mile was fairly easy going, then I got into the canyon which has steep sides and is filled with all kinds of "difficult" vegetation the worst being the cat claw bushes like the one in right bottom of the photo.

The crash site comes back into view as I approach it. The first half mile only took twenty minutes, it took a hour and a half more to get to this point. All the dead looking bushes are cat claw. The only reason I didn't turn around an hour ago was that I was able to spot the site at the start and knew it was there.

Approaching the crash site. It took me two and a half hours to get here. I made some bad route choices on the way in, should be easier on the way out.

My first good view of the site, could see both wings and the tail surfaces.

The left wing. The outer four feet was badly damaged, the rest was in fairly good condition.

Close look at the damaged wingtip.

View from the rear showing the aileron.

Another view of the wing. Looks like only the wingtip struck during the crash.

Close up of one of the flap hinges.

Pitot tube.

One of the main landing gears.

Looks like the wheels were salvaged.

A large piece of the fuselage was attached to the left wing.

Bottom of the fuselage.

Another view of the fuselage. The background shows how steep and rugged the terrain is.

The rudder pedals.

An overall view of the wing and fuselage before moving on to the other remaining wreckage.

A piece of wreckage overgrown by picky pear cactus.

This piece is about three feet across.

Turning it over could see that it was part of the engine cowling.

The vertical stabilizer and rudder.

The wheel pant from the left main landing gear.

One of the horizontal stabilizers and elevators.

The fuselage tail cone with the tie down. This was the last part from the fuselage I found at the site. No sign of the rest of the fuselage or engine.

Think this is the mass balance for the elevator.

The other horizontal stabilizer and elevator.

Just above stabilizer was the right wing which was overgrown by the dreaded cat claw bush.

View from the other side.

This wing was also only damaged on the tip, but it looked like it was compressed from the tip. By looking at the damage, looks like the left wing struck first spinning the plane around. Surprising how little damage is on all the flying surfaces considering the terrain.

Close up of the wing root showing the flap.

Took this photo trying to get a shot of the landing gear, but the camera focused on the cat claw bush. It shows what makes this stuff so hard to hike through.

Before heading out, tried to get an overall view of the crash site, but due to the terrain had to do it in two photos. This is the upper section with the right wing and horizontal stabs.

The lower section with the vertical stab and left wing.

In this last shot from the site, you can see part of the big black X on the left wing. Looks like who ever salvaged parts from the site flipped it over after it was marked. Also in the background is my truck about a mile away.

The truck comes back into view after getting out of the canyon. The hike from here is easy after dealing with the vegetation in the canyon.

The start of the long drive home. Was happy to finally be able to locate the site on the third try, but not as happy as getting out of the cat claw filled canyon. Don't plan on returning here in the future.

THE END