Message posted by Neonsky on September 09, 2008 at 20:25:50 PST:

To All,

I have just uploaded all my photos of the crash impact site of the F-15. Some may be redundant, but I figured I would let the viewers decide what is important to them. In a sense, I am just a chronicler of the event.

It was almost three weeks since the crash that I had an opportunity to revisit the site. With a friend I went down into the crash site and took many pictures, as I usually do. When I walked up to the barrels I kicked several of them and determined that they were empty. I soon realized that they would be used to contain the thousands of small fragments still scattered about the debris field.

I walked several hundred feet past the barrels and noticed a larger than normal fragment piece of debris. It was about 12 inches long by maybe 8 inched wide. It had no burn marks that I could tell and was olive green, or camo colored. It had jagged edges all around its circumference. It did not appeared to be torn or ripped from it’s major counterpart, whatever that would be, but more like punched out, like a shattered piece of glass but with more jagged edges all around. It was really two pieces of metal joined together along its longitudinal axis. It was joined by a seam running along the axis that buttressed each other with a right angle lip. There were rivets all about the fragment. There were no character markings anywhere. It did not weigh much when I picked it up, examined it, and then walked back to the drums and placed it on top of one of them and left it there for the cleanup crew. For some odd reason I never took a photo of the piece, so I am describing it from my recollection. Sorry for that relapse, as some of you are really interested in the minutia of the crash.

The photos speak for themselves. I took as many photos as I thought necessary from many different perspectives. The scattered fragments will give the viewers a good idea of the violence of the impact. Close examination will show the clean 100+ ft diameter prime impact site.

I would like to say enjoy the photos, but it is impossible for me to say that. Most everyone else can go there and be very disconnected, but I can’t. For some reason I feel a connection to the crash site, even though I did not see that event unfold. Maybe it is the years I spent looking at dead bodies while on the Police Force, or seeing the aftermath of deadly crashed, or homicide scenes. Maybe long forgotten memories are inexplicitly resurrected that I thought I had buried very deep. Maybe it is because I have spent quite a few years watching the fly boys play in the skies and wish I was with them, never thinking that anyone of them could die here in the Nevada desert, would die here in the desert. I just don’t know anymore about these things. I just hope and pray, as I am sure most of you do, that it doesn’t happen again as long as I am out there watching.

http://community.webshots.com/album/566711795RIpEoi

…Alan

In Reply to: F-15 crash near Cedar Gate posted by neonsky (Alan) on July 30, 2008 at 17:52:30 PST:

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