Into the Clouds: 1949 B-26 crash on Mount Hood

A Routine Flight Turns Fatal

The Disappearance

The 1949 B-26 crash on Mount Hood – On April 21, 1949, a U.S. Air Force, Martin B-26 Marauder attack bomber disappeared in the clouds over Oregon. The twin-engine attack bomber had departed Hamilton Field near San Francisco that morning, bound for Portland. Aboard were three servicemen: Col. Archibald Y. Smith, 49, pilot; Col. Walter W. Hodge, 45, a U.S. Army officer from the Presidio; and Master Sergeant Herman E. Sluga, crew chief from San Jose.

At 11:39 a.m., as the plane neared Portland, Col. Smith radioed the control tower. He reported he was flying on instruments at 7,000 feet, just three minutes south of the Portland. He requested permission to make an instrument let-down, an instrument guided ascent, through the heavy cloud cover. Then his voice was gone. The bomber never arrived.

The Search

The disappearance set off one of the most intense air searches the Northwest had seen. More than thirty planes scoured the skies from Oregon City to Mount Hood, and north into Washington as far as Mount St. Helens. Rescue planes from McChord Field joined Portland Army Air Base crews, while ground teams pushed into the Cascade Mountains. Searches were made as far away as the Oregon Coast Range.

The effort was grueling. Low clouds and poor visibility hampered pilots. Reports of broken trees near Woodland, Washington, and wreckage on Mount Hood proved false leads. Crews combed high ridges and river valleys day after day, but the bomber seemed to have vanished into the mountain wilderness.

The search carried its own toll. On April 29, Bruce W. Spalding Jr., a 23-year-old pilot from Vancouver, crashed his T-6 trainer in heavy timber near Vernonia while searching for the missing men. He was killed instantly.

For month, nothing was found. Families of the missing men offered a $1,500 reward for discovery of the wreckage, but even that failed to break the silence. By summer, the official search was scaled back, and the reward was withdrawn.

Discovery on the Mountain

On August 17, 1949, four months after the disappearance of the 1949 B-26 crash on Mount Hood, chance finally broke the mystery. Charles Coletti, a Timberline Lodge employee, was hiking with lodge maid Billie Fowler in Paradise Park. They cut across the slopes near Mississippi Head when Coletti stumbled onto twisted fragments of metal and insulation. They had found the wreck of the missing bomber.

The next day Coletti and Forest Ranger Jim Ralph returned to the site. The wreckage was scattered across the cliffs of Mississippi Head, at 7,200 feet, with debris cascading down into Big Zigzag Canyon. One engine lay at the base of the cliff, the other nearly a half-mile away in the canyon. The fuselage had disintegrated into thousands of pieces. Parachutes had deployed on impact, their shredded remains still hanging in the rocks. The long-lost bomber had struck the mountain at full speed, shattering across a sheer cliff face.

A Harrowing Recovery

If the discovery was dramatic, the recovery was even more so. On August 19, teams of rescuers began the grim task of retrieving the crew. The conditions were almost impassable. Loose rock and precarious boulders rattled with each step. Climbers were forced to use ropes, pitons, and what mountaineers called “Class Six technique” to inch their way across vertical cliff faces.

The three men were found scattered across the mountain’s unforgiving slopes. Colonel Hodge’s body lay near the top of Mississippi Head, in what some believed was evidence he had survived the impact only to fall later from the cliff. Colonel Smith was discovered below in the canyon bottom, his remains decaying in the brush. The most difficult of all was Master Sergeant Sluga, whose body hung suspended from a parachute caught in the rocks, requiring a perilous climb to bring him down.

The risks were very real. Bill Eimstad of Zigzag, a veteran rescuer, was struck in the back by a 50-pound boulder dislodged from above. Miraculously, he survived. Another low-flying plane, buzzing too close, triggered rockslides that rained down over the rescue party. Rescuers clung to roots and cracks in the rock as avalanches of stone thundered into Big Zigzag Canyon.

Despite these perils, the bodies were slowly lowered down the mountain. Teams carried them through the steep, hazardous chute of Big Zigzag Canyon, crossing waterfalls and snowfields before finally reaching Timberline Lodge.

A Change in Communication Protocol

In the months that followed, investigators looked beyond Mount Hood to Oregon’s radio range system. At the time, the Toledo (TDO) and The Dalles (TDL) stations broadcast on nearly identical frequencies with confusingly similar identifiers. Investigators believed Col. Smith, flying blind at 7,000 feet, mistook The Dalles signal for Portland’s, a fatal error that carried the bomber straight into the mountain’s southwest slopes.

The problem wasn’t unique to Mount Hood. Later that year, a C-54 transport crashed on Mount St. Helens under nearly identical circumstances, killing all aboard. Both tragedies exposed the dangers of outdated navigation signals.

In response, federal authorities changed call letters and adjusted frequencies to reduce confusion. These quiet adjustments to radio navigation were part of the legacy of the 1949 crash, ensuring safer skies for those who followed.

The Aftermath for the Men

From Timberline, the remains of the crew were taken to the Multnomah County morgue, then to McChord Field with military escort. Funerals followed with full honors. Col. Walter W. Hodge was buried in San Francisco on August 25, 1949. M/Sgt. Herman E. Sluga was laid to rest in Golden Gate National Cemetery at San Bruno, California. Col. Archibald Y. Smith was buried with honor at Arlington National Cemetery.

The recovery had been perilous, carried out under constant threat of rockfall and avalanche, but rescuers persevered to ensure the men were brought down from the mountain and laid to rest with dignity.

References

• The Oregonian (Portland, OR), April–August 1949. Coverage of the B-26 disappearance, search efforts, discovery, and recovery.
• The Oregon Daily Journal (Portland, OR), April–August 1949. Reports on search operations and eventual discovery of the wreckage.
• The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), April 22–26, 1949. Articles on disappearance and search efforts.
• Albany Democrat-Herald (Albany, OR), April and August 1949. Reports on search expansion and wreckage discovery.
• Medford Mail Tribune (Medford, OR), April and August 1949. Coverage of search efforts and recovery operations.
• Herald and News (Klamath Falls, OR), August 18–19, 1949. Coverage of discovery and recovery.
• The Bulletin (Bend, OR), April 25, 1949; August 18, 1949. Reports on the disappearance and discovery of the bomber.
• The News-Review (Roseburg, OR), April 23 & 25, 1949; August 19, 1949. Coverage of disappearance, search, and recovery.
• Statesman Journal (Salem, OR), April and August 1949. Front-page coverage of disappearance and discovery.
• The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, OR), March 12, 1950. Article analyzing radio range confusion in relation to the Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens crashes.
• Grauer, Jack. Mount Hood: A Complete History. Portland, OR: Jack Grauer Productions, 2004.
• “Archibald Yarborough Smith.” Find a Grave. Arlington National Cemetery. Accessed September 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49316748/archibald-yarborough-smith.
• “Walter W. Hodge.” Find a Grave. San Francisco. Accessed September 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/152277233/walter-w-hodge.
• “Herman E. Sluga.” Find a Grave. Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, California. Accessed September 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/109133979/herman-e-sluga.

About the reconstructed images on this website.
Some images in this article may be reproductions based on historic photographs or newspaper articles that survive only in poor condition. These images have been digitally restored to improve clarity and, where necessary, reconstructed to represent the originals accurately. All reconstructions are guided by historical evidence and are intended to clarify-not reinterpret-the original scenes.