Over 400 Airplanes Have Crashed In Wyoming

Of all the planes that have ever flown over Wyoming, how many have crashed? That question can be answered on The Plane Crash Site, the website that tracks and logs plane crashes across the USA.

The website logs every reported crash everywhere. Here's information on those that happened in Wyoming.

414 crashes are recorded on the Wyoming page.

That is far fewer than automobile crashes.

The first crash recorded was a Taylorcraft, tail number NC6343 that crashed just west of what would one day be the Casper airport, on Oct. 3, 1943.

Bombers that were training out of the Casper airport crashed, as well as fighter trainers. One fighter trainer that crashed was flown by Chuck Yeager. 

At least, that was the first recorded crash.

The first crash this author is aware of, according to local legend in Campbell County, is a biplane that crashed after flying a demonstration in Gillette. The town folks went out to help the pilot recover his plane, so the story goes. That would have been around 1918.

Probably the most famous plane crash in Wyoming history was the Medicine Bow Peak Crash in 1955. United Airlines Flight 409 departed from Denver to Salt Lake City for what was supposed to be an 83-minute flight. Overcast skies prevented the crew from seeing the solid granite mountain they were heading for.

But crashes of passenger planes are rare.

The vast majority of the 414 crashes listed are small private planes.

Yet another famous crash can be found in the tragic story of Jessica Whitney Dubroff who was supposed to become the youngest girl to fly coast to coast. She was just seven years old, when, according to U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, her flight instructor's improperly decided to take off in poor weather conditions in an overloading aircraft. She could not maintain airspeed on their Cessna 177B Cardinal, which resulted in a stall of the airflow over the wing and then a crash. Their plane crashed on a street in Cheyenne Wyoming less than a mile from the airport. Jessica, her flight instructor, and her father died on impact.

A more recent crash in Wyoming was at the Gillette airport in Campbell County. A Cessna 210 landed on its belly with its landing gear still retracted. The pilot and passenger walked away without any injuries.

Since the dawn of aviation Wyoming has had 414 recorded plane crashes. That averages out to 4.3 a year with most being non-fatal.

Compare this to the average of about 120 people who die driving on Wyoming roads each year.