A New Book On The 1962 B-47 Crash At Wright Peak

This week on The Historians Podcast the guest is Alan Maddaus, author of Wright Peak Elegy: A Story of Cold War, Nuclear Deterrence and Ultimate Sacrifice (Epigraph, 2022).

The book tells the story of a US Air Force B-47 jet bomber that crashed into Wright Peak in New York’s Adirondack Mountains in January 1962.

The plane, bound for the then Plattsburgh Air Force Base, apparently veered about 30 miles off course due to inclement weather and high winds, and ventured into the Adirondack High Peaks.

A faulty altimeter may have been one of the causes of the tragic crash near the summit of Wright Peak. All four crew members died; searchers never located the remains of one of them.

The B-47 jet bomber was built to be a threat to the Soviet Union and deter its expansion plans in the years after the Second World War. Ten percent of the B-47 fleet crashed leading to hundreds of deaths. The B-47 was ultimately replaced by the B-52.

Author Alan Maddaus is a turbomachinery consulting engineer with an interest in historical research and writing. He lives in upstate New York and coastal Maine.

You can listen to the podcast here.

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