Aileron

No, not my crash. We went hiking in the Catskills this weekend and found the wreckage of one of the plane crashes there on Kaaterskill Peak. We also found a piece of wing from another crash further up the mountain but didn't bother looking for the rest.

Apparently there are a lot of small crash sites scattered throughout the Catskills, mostly as a result of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT), where the pilot had complete control of the aircraft up until impact, but just didn't expect the ground to be where it was, either because he was lost or had no visibility or was disorientated (or all three). There's even a B-25 bomber on the east side of Balsam Cap from a training mission that got lost at night.

This particular plane was a Piper Cherokee Six, tail № N7146C, and on its last flight on 25 June 1987, it took off from Quakertown, PA bound for Tannersville, NY. At the time of the crash (2115), there was thick overcast just above the mountain tops, civil twilight had just ended, and the moon had not yet risen, so it would have been pretty dark. The pilot wouldn't have seen the mountains, especially if he was descending out of the clouds. It would have just been black on black. Tannersville is only three miles from the crash site, so the pilot was likely beginning his descent into the airport pattern (both landing gear were down), misjudged his position, and found a mountain where he didn't expect one. The pilot and his one passenger were both killed. They probably didn't have time to process what happened.

The Catskills are not high at all, the peaks are around 3500 ft, and the fact that this is high enough to catch planes is scary. Losing visual references on a VFR flight is one of the scariest things I can think of.

The starboard wing is on the right here, seen with the landing gear extended out of the wheel well. There's a fuselage section on the left, and the engine is further out of view to the left.