Warbird Information Exchange

This plane is on our property in the Kohala mountains just west of Waimanu Valley on the Island of Hawai'i. It is about to be investigated by the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, which wants to air lift it out and move it to the museum as an exhibit if it is in good enough condition and it is possible. The Discovery Channel wants to make a documentary of this. Their interest aroused mine, and this site is where I wound up.

Personally I have never been to the site of the crash, nor have any of the owners of the property, and I have spent many weeks walking around up there. Our property is very large- 2600+ acres of the most remote, rugged, and inaccessible area in Hawai'i. The terrain is extremely rugged- unbelievably so to someone used to backcountry in the mainland U.S.- and every year hikers are lost attempting to cross the Kohala Mountains. It can take you days to go what looks like a mile on the map, if you manage to do it at all. The USGS maps are totally inaccurate, and unmapped gulches 30 feet wide and a hundred feet deep, hidden by vegetation, are a common hazard. Bottomless volcanic holes, 5-50 feet across and often hidden, are not uncommon. This is one of the wettest places in the world, and flash flooding can isolate you very quickly. There is a reason it took days to get a rescue crew to the site, and that the crew did not try to walk out themselves! And back then there was a trail system the Ditch companies maintained...

The only practical way to access the site is by helicopter, and we absolutely forbid any attempt to walk in. Personally I would have no problem with someone flying into the site, but it is owned by a business and my partners in the past have insisted on a $300 landing fee and proof of insurance from people who have wanted to land on our property. This is actually a small cost compared to chartering a helicopter to take you there at $750 an hour. Your best bet might be to wait until it makes it to the museum- if it does...

The property owner is Laupahoehoe Nui LLC. Contact at ypochris@yahoo.com.

On a historical note, I was told that the plane was fitted out as a spy plane rather than a bomber. Apparently all equipment and armament was removed shortly after the crash by the military. Anything else not nailed down has been removed as keepsakes. The plane originally came to rest hanging over the gulch, then later slid into it.

There was also a tank on the property, but it apparently has degenerated into a pile of rust and is lost. For some reason the army was convinced that the Japanese were somehow going to scale the 1400 foot sheer oceanfront cliffs and attack through the Kohala swamps. They drove a number of tanks into the mountains to guard the clifftops, but they mired in the swamps. There they waited, to surprise the enemy troops that never came. If the commanders had attempted to make their way from the ocean to Waimea over the Kohalas themselves, they would have realized how absurd a proposition this was.

I thank you all for the information posted here- we knew almost nothing about this plane besides what I have posted above. Stay tuned for the Discovery Channel movie!

Chris

The Air Force washed their hands of it over seventy years ago, and they would only let it rot outside somewhere else anyway.
The B-18 should be preserved indoors, and I hope you succeed in convincing a good, non-government museum into acquiring it.

My understanding was the intent was to present it in a diorama type display, exhibiting the Bolo just as it currently sits on the mountain. This would give visitors the feel of visiting the wreck site without having to actually hire a helicopter or hike in. And protect the plane, of course.

As far as lifting it out over populated areas, I assumed it would be flown to a barge offshore and towed to Oahu, as the distance is nearly two hundred miles. It is only a couple miles from the ocean, and the entire lift to the barge would be over our property, endangering no one.