A day after the 2009 Edwards AFB Open House, I had the opportunity to participate in a guided tour of the X-2 46674 crash site.

While I won't divulge the exact location here, I was surprised how close it was to a major highway near Edwards AFB. After double checking whether a rental car would make an off-road trip into the desert, our kind "tour guide" Greg Frazier assured us it wouldn't be a problem.

The site we visited was where the bulk of the aircraft impacted. The nose-cone escape capsule came to rest at a separate site on Edwards AFB property. The X-2's wreckage at this particular site came to rest in three major sections.

The site itself has no signage saying "this is it" or what I would consider major landmarks to find. You can do a simple comparison from investigation photos to elements in the background and see the match. Dirt and rock covered roads did leave somewhat of a path to the location.

Walking around the area, it's hard to think that over 50 years ago an X plane crashed there, especially when seeing cars zipping by on the nearby highway. After roaming around for a few minutes, little bits of fabric and metal were found. To the untrained eye (me), it was hard to find much of anything. However, our guide Greg was pretty keen to spot pieces, especially remnants of metal wire at our feet which looked more like brush.

The site seems pretty well picked over from past visitors, weather and time. We spent about an hour staring at the ground and moving sand and rock around for hidden pieces.

What some aviation archaeologists may consider as nothing special, the one thing that struck me was the number of flash bulb bases we found from the investigation photographers.

Many thanks to Greg for taking the time to show us around!

If you have any crash site photos, please let me know - I would like to do a before/after comparison with my recent photos.

The day's findings: Brown fiberboard with a rivet attached, white fabric, wire, K-monel piece, flashbulb base.

Additional site photos