Mount Kit Carson is a mountain in the

northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, located in

Spokane County, Washington Spokane County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 539,339, making it the List of counties in Washington, fourth-mo ...

, northeast of

Spokane Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Canada ...

, with a summit

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

of above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

. It is in Mount Spokane State Park, the largest of Washington's State Parks at .

1962 Plane crash

On September 10, 1962, a U.S. Air Force

KC-135 Stratotanker The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker is an American military aerial refueling aircraft that was developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, alongside the Boeing 707 airliner. It is the predominant variant of the Boeing C-135 Stratolifter, C-135 Strat ...

was descending for a landing at

Fairchild Air Force Base Fairchild Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force base, located in the northwest United States in eastern Washington, approximately southwest of Spokane. The host unit at Fairchild is the 92nd Air Refueling Wing (92 ARW) assigne ...

west of Spokane when it flew into a fog-shrouded ravine on Mount Kit Carson. The aircraft was based at Ellsworth AFB in

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

and all forty-four aboard were killed. It was the worst aviation accident in U.S. history (at the time) and as of October 2012, remains the 3rd worst accident (currently) involving a KC-135. It was attributed to a navigational error by the crew.

References

External links

* Mountains of Spokane County, Washington Mountains of Washington (state) {{SpokaneCountyWA-geo-stub