Near the top of Mt. Diablo, in the San Francisco Bay area of California, are the rusting  remains of a C-45F that crashed killing Lt. Woodrow W. Davis and Major William J. Kettler.  Major Kettler was just a passenger, along for the ride.  The twin engine airplane hit the 3,840 ft. mountain at the 3,000 foot level in bad weather.  Mountain peaks, bad weather and airplane don't mix.

    Here are but a few of the many pictures taken on our trip.
 
 

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    The trip to this site was arranged by Craig Fuller of  A.A.I.R. .  Craig and his wife, Heidi were to lead two newspaper reporters from Stockton, California to the site in the hopes of furthering the cause of Aviation Archaeology.  He invited about nine other aviation wreck enthusiasts to go along, including Jim Rowan, Walt Holm Dave Peterson and myself (Don Jordan).  We met at the parking lot on the very top of the mountainand recieved a  briefing from Craig.  After viewing the Crash Book, we packed out gear and started down the trail into the thick brush.

    The crash site is locating behind this rocky outcropping on the north slope of the mountain.  Three thousand feet below you can see the outskirts of the city of Concord, California.

    The first piece of wreckage found was this wing section.  It was obvious others had been there before us.  Many small pieces of the aluminum skin from the wing had been removed as souvenirs.  There was also a lot of modern trash laying around.  We attempted to clean up some of the trash, but there was just too much.  I do wish others would not litter these sites.

    Another view of the very badly damaged wing section.  Not all this damage was done in the initial crash impact.  After the Investigation Board had finished their report, the remaining wreckage was dynamited, and left on site.

    The remains of the cockpit tubing can be seen here.  It is hard to tell what is crash damage and what is dynamite damage.  This area receives a lot of rain so the area around this site is really quite beautiful with moss growing on all the trees.

    The main landing gear and the pilot's control column were laying together here.  It is not likely they ended up this way after the crash, but were instead place here by a previous visitor.

    This mangled radial engine was most likely blown apart by dynamite, rather than from the crash impact.  Gravity is slowly moving the engine down the slope toward a hiking trail.  Much of the wreckage is moving downhill over time.  The second engine was not located.

    Part of the crankshaft and propeller lay a short distance from the engine.  The blade shows impact damage consistent with high engine RPM, and sudden stoppage.