It was early January. The team charged with stabilizing the scorched, slide-prone mountains above suburban Orange County had hiked for miles up twisting ravines when they spotted odd aluminum globules and jagged hunks of steel rooted in the earth.
A U.S. Forest Service "smoke jumper" -- trained to vault out of airplanes into wildfires -- recognized the tangled debris.
"Looks like an airplane wreck to me," he said. They pinpointed the coordinates and phoned Forest Service officials. What was this dismembered carcass of an airplane doing in the middle of a forest?
When the Santiago fire roared through the Santa Ana Mountains in October, it scoured vast stretches of land, leaving behind black rock, burnt root and these strange, shiny pieces of metal.
It was a fresh example of the wonders, oddities and sad scraps of history exposed when large swaths of wilderness in the American West are burned clear. Murder victims' bones, ancient stone villages and rusted jalopies have all been found.
"It's ground rediscovered," said Tom Lavignino, a Forest Service spokesman who has seen such finds in several states. "After a major burn, it's a lot easier to navigate in these remote areas without getting jabbed in the face or the arm by a bush. So you'll find things. Old cars. Dead people. We've found toxic waste too."
Overwhelmed with post-fire duties, forest staff didn't immediately respond to the call about the plane wreck. But pilots chattered about the mystery find for weeks, zooming low over the wreckage scattered across the bare hills. Was it a downed firefighting plane? He must've hit that ridge. It must've been pretty bad. Wonder if they got out alive. Wonder if there are bodies in there. . . .
Word of the wreck spread. Cleveland National Forest trails manager Debra Clarke took notice, and had an idea: Call Pat.
Within sight of the Santa Ana Mountains, G. Pat Macha, a retired high school teacher, was sitting in his Mission Viejo home office researching an obscure plane wreck when the phone rang. Macha, 62, is one of a unique breed. He's a self-trained aviation archaeologist. Ever since he discovered a downed Air Force transport plane while leading a YMCA hike in the San Bernardino Mountains as a youth, he's been smitten. For decades, he's studied plane crash sites from the peaks of the Sierra Nevada to the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
